Gerard Butler is looking for lasting love

Gerard Butler is ready to ''settle down and share'' his life with the right woman but he won't rush into a relationship.

Gerard Butler wants to find someone to spend the rest of his life with.

The 'Machine Gun Preacher' star - who has previously been romantically linked to Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston and most recently model Sarah Carroll - is ready to settle down with someone special, but he admits he has had a great track record with his other relationships.

He said: "I would love to settle down and share my life with someone. But it'll happen when it's going to happen.

"When I try and plan things in my life they very rarely pan out. And it's often when I think, 'OK, you know what, I don't want to be in a relationship right now for whatever reason', that suddenly I find myself open to one and it happens."

However, the 42-year-old hunk has ruled out dating any of his co-stars because of previous bad experiences with on-set romances.

He added: "That's a dangerous path. When you're making a film with someone, you get to know them very well indeed, and it's too easy to develop a sort of obsession with them that you think at the time might be love. But it isn't.

"Earlier in my career, I had a couple of relationships with co-stars and both times it was a disaster. It burned itself out in the middle of the film and that is really, really uncomfortable, spending more than half your day working with someone you've just broken up with."