Who Are the Best Actors Turned Directors?

Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” is tearing up the box office, so the CineNation crew decided to talk about their favorite actors turned directors

CineNation
CineNation
9 min readMar 10, 2017

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There have been a number of great actors turned directors throughout the entire history of film. Charlie Chaplin, Warren Beatty, Ron Howard, and the list goes on and on. The most recent name that we must add to that list is Jordan Peele. Famous for his comedic talents on Comedy Central’s Key & Peele sketch show, Peele decided to take a left turn after the popular show went off the air and direct a horror film. His phenomenal directorial debut, Get Out, is taking American audiences by storm. In honor of Peele’s successful turn from actor to director, some of the CineNation writers decided to talk about a few of their favorite actors turned directors.

Buster Keaton

By Alex Bauer

Buster Keaton originally was a man of the stage. Acting in his parents vaudeville act, little Buster learned to command a stage by doing very little. Action got the people laughing. Whether that be being thrown around or having a humorous facial expression, Keaton knew the power of comedy was great. It was his first taste of the spotlight; it would not be the last.

Starring in early Fatty Arbuckle films, Buster Keaton began acting in films as a background character. But, the man was learning all he could about film and filmmaking. Never a huge standout in his early acting work — he’s not winning any awards — Keaton was another silent film actor trying to earn a buck. Luckily, for him and for us, he got behind a camera.

Some of film’s best scenes come from Keaton directed films. Buster Keaton knew how to make people laugh, but he also had them at the edge of their seat. Keaton’s stunts are considered some of the best work ever in film. To this day, films like The General and The Playhouse feature jaw dropping stunts and direction. Even modern audience gasped at the scenes directed by Buster Keaton. The technical achievements — the danger Buster Keaton put himself in — easily make him my favorite actor turned director.

Clint Eastwood

By Will Clayton

High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, Gran Torino, American Sniper. If any one director managed to make five of these movies, we would call him a successful director. Clint Eastwood made all of them. Four of these movies are considered classics and necessary entries into the Western genre. One of those is the greatest revisionist Western of all time. Five of the above movies have been nominated for Best Picture. Two of them have won Best Picture and Best Director. Eastwood is a titan within the film industry and a legend in the Western genre. He is one of only three living directors to have directed two Best Picture winners. His accolades speak for themselves.

Jon Favreau

By Dan LeVine

In the entertainment industry, it is unfortunately all too common that directors get pigeonholed as being able to do only one genre. M. Night Shyamalan could probably direct a good family comedy and Judd Apatow could probably land a dark drama. But they’ll never get the chance. But over the last two decades, one director has not only managed to avoid being “typecast”, but has had massive success doing so.

What can’t Jon Favreau do? Of course, he directed the game-changing superhero action flicks Iron Man and Iron Man 2, the first of which launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most prestigious multi-film series endeavor in film history. Favreau has proved his comic chops with 2001’s Made, 2014’s Chef and 2003’s Elf, which has become an instant holiday classic. As for sci-fi, he brought us the well-received Zathura: A Space Adventure as well as Cowboys & Aliens, arguably his only misstep as a director, though it left critics divided. And last year, he took on the ambitious CGI-heavy action-adventure-musical The Jungle Book, a huge hit.

Perhaps his comfort with a wide variety of genres comes from his experience in acting. As an actor, he’s probably best-known for Swingers and Rudy, but he’s appeared in over 60 projects including Friends, Daredevil (2003) & The Wolf of Wall Street.

But back to the question — who is my favorite actor-turned-director and why? I admire Favreau’s ability to break free from being forced into a single genre and handle each with apparent ease. But mostly, I admire him because I believe he remains a kind and humble person. I went to a Q&A after a screening of Chef and was blown away when, after the interview, Favreau did something I have yet to see another Hollywood celebrity do — he stayed over 30 extra minutes to chat with his fans and take photos. He didn’t have to. He wanted to.

TAIKA WAITITI

By Thomas Horton

There are hardly words to express my love and respect for this writer/director/actor from New Zealand. I was a fan of Taika’s work before I even knew his name, when he was writing and directing episodes of Flight of the Conchords for his college buddies Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. As a fan of the show, I was curious to see Jemaine’s leading role in Taika’s 2007 feature filmmaking debut, Eagle vs Shark. It’s an enjoyable off-beat comedy about awkward love, but Taika really found his voice three years later, when he wrote, directed and starred in the comedy Boy.

The 2010 comedy captures the essence of childhood like very few films ever have, looking through young Boy’s eyes as he idolizes his deadbeat, immature father (played somehow as both charming and repulsive by Waititi). It’s hilarious, it’s quirky, it’s heartbreaking, it’s beautiful.

Taika followed up Boy by co-writing/directing/starring with Jemaine in the utterly hilarious What We Do In The Shadows, a small mockumentary following a group of vampire roommates living in New Zealand. Over the past few years, the film has built itself a cult following, gaining Taika more attention before he wrote and directed last year’s Hunt for Wilderpeople. Debatably his best work yet, the film follows young Ricky Baker (brilliantly played by the ridiculously charismatic Julian Dennison), a troubled young man who goes on the run from the child protective services with his gruff, woodsman uncle (Sam Neill). Once again, Taika captures childhood in a way few other filmmakers can, crafting a comedy that is laugh-out-loud funny, touching and joyous.

There’s one thing that always stands out about Taika’s work on and off-screen: you can always feel his love for every single one of his characters, no matter how deluded or wacky they might be. It takes a special talent to find the tenderness in a group of self-obsessed vampires, but Taika manages to do it.

Taika’s hot streak has continued with him having major creative input for the script and casting of Disney’s latest wonderful film Moana. Next up, he’s directing his first major blockbuster with the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok, and I absolutely cannot wait. If there’s anyone to bring a unique voice to Thor and the Hulk, surely it’s the man who wrote and performed this scene:

Jon Favreau (…again)

By Sean Randall

As an actor, I’ve only ever seen Jon Favreau in 6 movies or so (plus Friends), and half of them rhyme with Byron Fan. As a director? Maybe there are even better directors who act, like Clint Eastwood. But Favreau has done something special. He doesn’t necessarily make “artistic classics” like Annie Hall, or poignant dramas like Million Dollar Baby. But he has impacted my movie-going experience more than any other director I can think of. Here’s why:

  1. He started the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and personally, I enjoy MCU films immensely. They’re fun, visually stimulating, well-acted, and fairly well-written for blockbusters. They don’t challenge me mentally, but they’re pure entertainment.
  2. He brought back Robert Downey Jr. to the mainstream. RDJ is a great actor, an incredible talent… and fell into some hard drug-related times and arrests in the early 2000s. While he found work over that time, it wasn’t until 2008’s Iron Man that RDJ reclaimed an even bigger star than he originally had and became a force moviegoers wanted to see.
  3. He paved the path of success for indie filmmakers. Something discussed in past CineNation podcasts (specifically episode 37) was how studios are taking risks on handing big budget films to lesser known directors (Colin Trevorrow and Jurassic World, Rian Johnson and Star Wars: Episode VIII, Josh Trank and Fantastic Four, etc.) While this doesn’t always work (sorry, Trank), it gives them a huge step into the world of cinema. Favreau directed Elf and Zathura prior to Iron Man, but Elf only had a $33 million budget and Zathura, a $65 million budget, is a forgotten flop. Iron Man jumped him to a $140 million budget. And even better? After producing Iron Man 3 and The Avengers, he took the big bucks he’d earned through these megaventures and created a passion project that I frankly adore, Chef. Indie filmmakers now have this blueprint to make big bucks and return to the indie world with actual funding for their ideas. And that makes the industry better.
  4. Oh, quick final point: The Jungle Book is a beautiful technical marvel that sets the bar incredibly high (sorry Avatar and Life of Pi). Do yourself a favor and watch both The Jungle Book and Chef to see how well Favreau can create entertainment on budgets both big and small.

Mike Nichols

By Brandon Sparks

Most of my favorite directors of all time are actors turned directors. For a number of years I’ve loved the work of Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollock, and Woody Allen. I gravitate toward them because they usually direct a high number of movies that have a great script, entertaining performances, and a solid visual style. I love all of the directors I just listed, and even the ones some of my fellow writers have written about, but to me, the greatest actor turned director is Mike Nichols.

Nichols started out as a performer with the incredibly talented Elaine May as an improv comedy duo. Nichols and May were one of the most influential acts in comedy history, and they completely changed the comedy landscape in America during their run. They had award-winning albums, successful Broadway shows, etc. Without them, things like Saturday Night Live wouldn’t exist.

As a performer and a comedic actor, Nichols was great, but as a director he was phenomenal. How many directors do you know whose first feature film was nominated for 13 Academy Award nominations? Probably none besides Mike Nichols for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Nichols has directed countless great films that are full of great performances: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Carnal Knowledge, Postcards from the Edge, Working Girl, and one of my all-time favorites, The Graduate, which he won his sole Oscar for Best Director.

Nichols is also one of the only twelve people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT). The man has won the Tony a total of SEVEN TIMES for Best Director for directing both plays and musicals (some being The Odd Couple, Spamalot, and Death of Salesman). Nichols could do anything as a director. Over his career, he directed such actors as Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Harrison Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, and the list goes on and on. He is considered an actor’s director by many, and when looking at the number of great actors he has worked with and the number of great performances he got out of them, he is arguably the greatest.

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