Over the course of film history, we’ve seen plenty of long-time actors step behind the camera to take up their directorial ambitions. Clint Eastwood did it. Mel Gibson did it. George Clooney did it. What do these three have in common? Well, for starters, they are all men, so there’s that. Further, they are all white, but more on that later. More to the point of the article, these men all eased into their directorial careers by starring in their respective debuts, using their presence on screen to help market their talents off it.
And with his feature directorial effort The Water Diviner, which hits limited theaters this week, Russell Crowe is just the most recent addition to a growing list of actors who have decided to try their hand behind the camera. Like Eastwood, Gibson, and Clooney before him, the Best Actor winner stars in his first feature as director, an early 1900s-set epic centered on an Australian farmer (Crowe) who goes in search of his three missing sons, last known to have fought against the Turks in the bloody Battle of Gallipoli.
Reviews for the film thus far are a bit mixed though they skew positive, citing Crowe’s performance and his sincere handling of the narrative as the film’s best attributes. There’s no telling where exactly The Water Diviner will wind up in the annals of movie history, but Crowe recently told CBS News he prefers directing to acting, so we’re probably right to assume this won’t be his only directing gig. So, in honor of the film’s release and in wondering what trajectory Crowe’s directorial career might take on, I thought it might be fun to look back at the directorial debuts of other actors who decided to step behind the camera: some successfully, some not, and still others whose legacy has yet to be determined.
This list is by no means comprehensive, I simply perused a few resources in search of directors and debuts and chose to highlight ones I found interesting, whether well-known or obscure, important or insignificant. In other words, if you have some to contribute to the conversation that I’ve overlooked or flat-out forgotten, go ahead and add them in the comments below. I’m all about crowd-sourcing, and when it comes to film knowledge, I’m hardly what you would call an expert. I’m just a future accountant with a passion for celluloid, y’all.
Also, please note this list is concerned with actors-turned-directors — the sequence in the title is key. In other words, the films you’ll find below are the debuts of men and women who made real names for themselves as actors before testing their skills behind the camera. So Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, you aren’t going to see those guys here, no matter how big a footprint they left on the history of cinema: they were behind the camera basically ever since they were in front of it.
If that rubs anyone the wrong way, I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. Wait, actually I do. I guess I’m going to have to find another way to weasel out of this one. Hmm… How about we just get started and you guys can yell at me once we’ve reached the end, if you are so inclined, deal? Alright cool. Now let’s begin, starting with…
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
DIR: Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an Oscar-winner for his work in front of the camera before trying his hand behind it, taking home a Best Actor trophy for his role in The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1934. Laughton also starred in an Alfred Hitchcock film, played Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and worked with David Lean, but it wasn’t until more than 25 years of acting that Laughton stepped behind the camera to make his first film, which coincidentally would also be his last.
[amz asin=”B00HVOFPD0″ size=”small”]Now widely considered one of the best directorial debuts of all-time, the consensus on The Night of the Hunter wasn’t nearly as rosy at the time of its release. Instead of giving directing another shot, Laughton chose to close out his career by working with the likes of Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution), Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus), and Otto Preminger (Advise and Consent). While The Night of the Hunter ultimately won out in the court of public opinion, Charles Laughton goes down in history as the actor-turned-director with the perfect 1.000 batting average.
Easy Rider (1969)
DIR: Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper was a fixture on television and found the occasional role in film — Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, Cool Hand Luke — before directing and starring in Easy Rider in 1969. Perhaps the definitive counterculture film, Easy Rider stars Hopper and Peter Fonda as hippie motorcyclists crossing the Southwest and encountering a crazy quilt of good and bad people, including an attorney (Jack Nicholson) who articulates society’s problem with freedom as these characters embody it.
Hopper made the film for the equivalent of nothing, a lean production that proved successful and gave Hopper the ability to make just about any film he wanted as his follow-up. With that in mind he did, resulting in 1971’s The Last Movie, a wildly existentialist non-linear drama that not only failed to live up to the reputation of his first outing, it failed to live up to anything period. Hopper directed a handful of other films thereafter, none nearly as successful as Easy Rider, but he found a place in front of the camera in films such as Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, and of course as King Koopa in the so-bad-it’s-good Super Mario Bros.
Play Misty for Me (1971)
DIR: Clint Eastwood
Though he is perhaps best known in film history as Dirty Harry or The Man With No Name in Sergio Leone‘s Dollars trilogy, Clint Eastwood only recently experienced his largest commercial success. Eastwood starred in his first film 60 years ago and directed his first over 40 years ago, but his 2014 film American Sniper is his highest grosser — either as a director or as a star — and it ain’t even close. That said, he had to start somewhere and start he did with Play Misty for Me, a thriller about a brief fling between a male disc jockey (Eastwood) and an obsessed female fan that takes a frightening turn when another woman enters the picture. Eastwood followed up Play Misty for Me with High Plains Drifter in 1973 and has built a name for himself as a director that perhaps exceeds his fame as an actor, winning Best Picture and Best Director for 1992’s Unforgiven and again for 2004’s Million Dollar Baby. I enjoy both of those quite a bit, and I have a personal soft spot for Gran Torino, though others aren’t quite as fond of Eastwood’s “get off my lawn” shtick. Hmph, to each his own.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
DIR: Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
This entry is arguably the closest thing on this list to a cheat, as both Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam were really only known for their work on their sketch comedy series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” before co-directing and co-starring in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but that show ran for a number of years and this film is one of my all-time favorites, so it made the cut. For anyone who hasn’t already seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you’re going to want to go ahead and do that, so I guess that means it’s time for intermission!
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And we’re back! Fun, right? Following Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Jones went on to direct Life of Brian and co-directed The Meaning of Life with Gilliam before venturing off on his own, though he never achieved the same success he found with the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam on the other hand directed numerous cult classics, from Time Bandits and Brazil to Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the latter of which is among the most arduous movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, however, I quite enjoyed.
