Director Ron Howard: I Would Like To Return To Acting

Director Ron Howard says he may return to acting.

Howard, who got his start acting on television series including "The Andy Griffith Show," went on to make some of Hollywood's biggest films from "Apollo 13" to "A Beautiful Mind." He also gave brought us cult television favorite "Arrested Development."

The director made the comments during a Tribeca Film Festival panel Saturday with Brian Williams after the "NBC Nightly News" anchor asked him if he would ever return to acting.

"I would kind of like to now," said Howard. "I acted all my life mostly in television series, also in movies. When I became a director, my wife, Cheryl, she's been with me every step of the way of this dream of being a movie director."

Howard recounted it was his wife, Cheryl, of nearly 40 years who reminded him that while he has become a great director, to not forget his acting roots.

"When I met Brian Grazer we began Imagine Films, my career was really established, I directed a couple of videos, I did a couple of cameo appearances in music videos ... and Cheryl finally came to me. By now, we had three of our four kids and she said, 'Ron, you know, I understood the dream to become a director. I didn't sort of have the mini-mogul thing in my mind and what that would entail, but that's great. You love it, Brian's great, and I'm proud of you, but now that we have this family and we're accomplishing all of this stuff, how about you don't dabble? How about you don't direct movie videos or TV commercials? And if you actually have two weeks to act for somebody, maybe just give that to us because I know how ambitious you are about the directing.' I moved pretty much from one movie to the next, so I thought that was a pretty fair argument."

Howard went on to say that he does get the occasional script to read now and then and that he's actually had to turn down offers from well-known directors.

"I've even had some opportunities with great directors," said Howard. "The Coen brothers once invited me to do something and I was doing a movie. Marty Scorsese, who's an absolute hero of mine, called me one time to ask if I wanted to be in a film and it was a nice role, and I couldn't do that as well."

"Because I move from film to film I never have the time to commit, but one of these days I'm going to make the time," he added.