Sarah Paulson gushes about Julia Roberts' acting

Sarah Paulson has given Julia Roberts major credit for shaping her acting dreams.

According to PEOPLE Magazine, Paulson revealed during her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony that Roberts' work was a defining inspiration in her journey to becoming an actress.

While accepting the honor, the American Horror Story star, 50, reflected on how Roberts' 1990 rom-com Pretty Woman lit the spark for her career.

“I cannot believe I’m standing here — the Walk of Fame,” she said, and she recalled that her earliest “connection” to Hollywood came as a teenager in New York, watching the iconic scene in which Roberts' character strolls along Hollywood Boulevard.

“This is, well, it’s outlandish,” Paulson continued.

“I’m not saying I didn’t dream of fame. I did. I used to walk around the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan, the public school I graduated from in 1993, quoting lines from Julia Roberts’ movies, my locker plastered with pictures of her.”

She then admitted just how deeply her admiration for Roberts ran.

“All it took for this narcissistic teenage brain to become possessed was for someone to say in passing, rather casually, that I looked a little like her, and that was it.”

“My quest to transform into her was born,” she added.

Nonetheless, Paulson noted that the fantasy did not last long.

“I hadn’t really considered that no one thought Julia Roberts’ time was up. No one was looking for a poor man’s version of her,” she explained.

Before conclusion, she admitted a painful realization, and the time when she decided to make her own name in the industry.

“She just got here herself. I had to come to the grips with the painful reality that her career was hers and hers alone.”