New York, January 14, 2009 - While accepting his Best Actor award for Gran Torino at the National Board of Review Awards gala on Wednesday, Clint Eastwood told the crowd how he got into the acting game:

“I’m embarrassed to say how I got into the acting business, but I, uh, was going to college about 56, 57 years ago, and I was on the GI Bill, and a friend of mine in my Psych class said, ‘Why don’t you come do an acting class with me?’ He said it’s great."

"I said, ‘Why would I want to do that?’  He said, ‘Well, we have a lot of good looking girls in the class.’  So I said, ‘Well, maybe I should come down and check it out’  And I did.  It was interesting.  I got there, and everybody was playing chickens and walking around the room and improvising a lot of things, but there were about thirty great looking girls and about five guys, and I said, ‘You know, this class needs me.’”

“You’ve got to be inspired by something,” Clint added with a shrug.