London, Apr 17 (IANS): Actor-director Ryan Gosling says he always wanted to rob a bank, but was scared about going to behind the bars.

Gosling, who plays a small town crook in his new drama Derek Cianfrance's "The Place Beyond the Pines", admits playing the tattooed bad boy helped him indulge in his lifelong fantasies about robbing a bank, because in real life, he is too scared to do it.

"I've always had this fantasy about robbing banks, but I'm scared of jail. I'll never do it, but I would, if I didn't have to go to jail," femalefirst.co.uk quoted Gosling as saying.

"We shot all the bank robberies in one take so I got to have as close to the real experience as possible, as close as I'm ever going to get. I got it out of my system. I'm too afraid of jail," he said.

However, the 32-year-old wasn't very pleased with his costume, especially the fake dagger tattoo director Cianfrance forced him to sport underneath his left eye, which left him feeling self-conscious and embarrassed.

"I regret the face tattoo. All the tattoos I wear in the movie - I don't know how necessary they are, but they were a part of trying to understand this character. What's interesting about working with Cianfrance is that you're not allowed to take your decisions lightly," he said.

"So then I had to go through the whole film that that tattoo on my face, and I regretted it the whole time. I was so ashamed I couldn't look in the mirror. I just felt embarrassed," added Gosling.