Ryan Gosling

If Russell Crowe says that he's Noah, he's Noah. You never doubt it. If he says that he's the Gladiator, he's the Gladiator. He's every character that he says he is. I've never doubted anything that he's done.

People don't step outside themselves and make the film they want to make, because they're afraid of the reaction. But once you get that reaction and have lived through it, there's nothing they can do to get you down.

I've always liked women more. I was brought up by my mother and older sister. I found my way into dance class.

I did what I had to do to get where I wanted to go. I had unearned confidence.

What's nice with comedy is that you know it's working if it's funny.

I feel like I think like a woman because I grew up with my mother and my sister, so I've just been programmed to think like a girl.

My mother had to tailor what I watched.

I'm attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life. That's my own reality, so it's a doorway into a world for me.

I love 'An American in Paris.' That's the one for me. Some of the visual ideas in that film are just haunting and very free.

It's interesting the kind of freedom the musical form gives you. The rules are out the window. You can get impressionistic without seeming pretentious. Because it's perceived as an inherently accessible form, it gives filmmakers some leeway.

I grew up on Shane Black movies, and I grew up on Joel Silver movies.

My first exposure to what Hollywood was like, behind the scenes, was when Joel Silver started screaming at Roger Rabbit at the beginning of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit.'

The '70s just seemed dirty, honestly, and not in an interesting way. It's not the '80s. In fact, it's 10 less. I grew up in the '80s, so that's more of an interesting time to me.

I'm from Canada, and I think, like everyone growing up anywhere else in the world, you are very aware of America - it sort of looms large in its legend, and so did Detroit.

The people of Disney are so incredibly amazing; they are so nice.

I need a break from myself as much as I imagine the audience does.

I'm going to make a movie about 'Hey Girl.'

I grew up on Mel Brooks films. That was film to me until I got a little bit older and realised there were other kinds of movies.

'The Nice Guys' fulfilled my 1970s fantasy.

That's the power of film. If it's good, it can somehow make you feel connected to even the farthest thing from your own experience.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I remember watching 'Boyz n the Hood,' and there is a scene where Cuba Gooding, Jr. gets pressed against a car by a police officer, and he starts crying because it's so humiliating. I remember thinking in that moment that I could totally identify with him, and I'm a little white kid from Canada.

I got a Twitter because some guy was pretending to be me.

You learn from all directors, all these guys.

You can tell so much about somebody by the films they make, and it's only while I approach this do I now realize how much of the filmmaker you can see in their films.

I'm not very good at knowing what people want. I don't have that talent. The best I can do is make films that resonate with me and see what happens.

Any time you stick your neck out in high school, there's someone right there to chop your head off.

It's weird to have no control over something that you're involved in.

I left Canada to come to Hollywood to make movies.

It's not easy to leave your hometown and your family and your support system and come out to Los Angeles to - to pursue a dream where the odds are not in your favor.

If I'm still acting at 46, I'll be surprised.

I grew up in a town called Cornwall, Ontario, which is about an hour outside of Montreal.

I loved growing up in Canada. It's a great place to grow up because - well, at least where I grew up - it's very multicultural. There's also good health care and a good education system.

My sister and I used to sing at weddings. We would sing 'When a Man Loves a Woman' to the bride. We'd do it right before the garter ceremony.

We should get a Roomba for our Roomba. I feel bad for it because it works tirelessly, and at night I can hear it cleaning, and I just feel bad for it.

I still go to Disneyland as much as I can. The Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride.

Actors become very professional and proficient about watching out for each other's light and not stepping on each other's lines.

When I made 'The Notebook,' the director, Nick Cassavetes, who is John's son, used to show me his father's movies.

I wish I could be Peter Falk.

Maybe in my life I sort of put myself in situations that were chaotic, outside of my life.

I really feel like if they'd have let me just pace in the back of the classroom while the teacher was talking, I'd have done much better. I have to move. But you know, that's disruptive for the class, and as a result, there was a ripple effect of having to sit still that found its way into every aspect of my life.

The Internet is just an abstract place. Sure, I've become part of that in some way, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around a lot of it. I prefer just to kind of stay out of it.

Watching myself. Watching the people around me. There was some part of me that was there as a kid and growing up and living my life, but there was also some part of me that was watching it all happen from the nosebleeds.

I had my hustle. It was whatever I could do to not end up working in a factory. If I had to shake it like a showgirl, I was going to do it.

I don't know enough about manliness to define it.

I just sort of feel like John Hughes movies are perfect, but they're missing violence. If they just had some violence, they'd be perfect.

I don't know specifically what scenes I'd like to see violence in - I crave violence when I'm watching a John Hughes movie.

I don't believe my house was haunted. I think I had an overactive imagination, and I was so convinced that those around me became convinced, too.

I think I was always bound to become two selves, if I wasn't already.

A car is only trouble at a certain point.

I didn't want to make a literal film about Detroit, because it felt like what they were experiencing was more universal than that.