Ron Howard Will Direct 'Til He Drops

Wednesday May 27, 2009 10:15 AM EDT

Ron Howard

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He may have made his first splash as adorable Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, but the first and last love of Ron Howard's life is making movies, and you can expect him to be doing it until the very end.

"I want to do this until I drop," he tells AARP The Magazine in the July/August issue. "When John Huston was directing his last movie, he was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. That's my idea of a good goal."

The 55-year-old director of Angels & Demons, who says he fell in love with movies when he saw 1967's The Graduate, fesses up to being a homebody despite being the man who helmed the astronaut epic Apollo 13.

"I'm not a very adventuresome person," he says. "People say, 'You love space. Would you want to go on the shuttle?' Well no, I wouldn't. At the end of my life, I'd rather have made another film or spent time with my family."
– Michael Y. Park