An actor who decides to direct can inspire an eyeroll: Of course they can. Which producer will say no after led a hit show?
A powerful actor who wants to direct has an advantage that others will not do. At the same time to become board members Tyler James WilliamsThe Available AYOThe Jason Batemanand Rhea Seehorn Had to be willing to go away from the comfort zone for their expertise and see themselves as a beginner.
They also used a Hollywood truism: people work with people they know, and the only way to make yourself known is to be excellent about the people who can hire you to do the work. It is the same logic that creates a script leader (Karyn Kusama), a PA producer (Kevin Feige) or an art coordinator-Ooscar-winning production designer (Hannah Beachler).
Here is what these actors say they learned when they did the transition.
Tyler James Williams
Back when he was the lead in “Everybody Hates Chris”, Williams Peppa began “Everybody” producer director Jerry Levine with questions. As he told indiegees proma khosla In February 2025he fell in love just not to be on TV But with the prospect to do so.
The dream came true in season 4 of “Abbott Elementary” with section 13, “The Science Fair”, but Williams realized that his dream was significantly greater than expected. The cigting style meant that a single scene could demand that you cross three sets at once.
“We had a lot of conversation about not only where the camera could be for the shot, but is it meaningful to the documentary on the other side of the camera?” he said. “Playing with these camera operators and cameras as characters in this world, what are their opinions about everything? Why do they get this shot they are? It affected many of the decisions I made.”
Williams Prep began months in advance. He sat in production meetings, tone meetings, concept meetings. He talked to the crew, with the camera department, with executive producer Randall Einhorn. And he started breaking down the section office even before he had dialogue or characters.
“Because I know the space and I know a kind of language in our show and how it works, I can begin to understand what this needs to move and how this needs to look,” he said. “It’s really hard to explain, and I guess this is where the vision part of it comes in, where I just start to see it when I read. I can see it a little in real time.”
Available AYO
When Edebiri joined “The Bear”, she had dozens of actors, she had been a storyteller on “Sunnyside”, a staff writer on “Dickinson”, and a writer and consultant at “What we do in the shadows” and “Big Mouth.” But she had never had to direct.
Before directing “The Bear” (Season 3, section 6, “Napkins”) she received a crash course on TV director from Director Guild of AmericaFirst time Episodic Director Orientation Program. (It is a DGA requirement for a series that “uses a” first time director “to direct a section of a dramatic TV, high budget SVOs or high budget Avod.”) She said it was “probably one of the coolest, biggest things I have ever done.”
“What I went away with the most was that the only wrong way to direct – yes, there are probably many wrong ways, but besides not communicating and not being open – not finding your way,” Addition. “If you try to do someone else’s way, it will not work. Our instructors were so helpful to really illustrate their differences – and that they succeeded in their differences – and then encourage us to find our ways to communicate and emphasize the fact that you always have to communicate.”
Her instructors included legends such as Paris Barclay, Keith Powell and Dr. Valerie Weiss, but Edebiri had to trust her own instincts and preparedness in her role and crew.
“You must have a certain amount of ego and a certain amount of safe in your decisions, but there must be room for cooperation and also be wrong, or not to have the answer,” she said. “It is this really miraculous amount of collaboration … It’s like making a Venn chart, but of a thousand circles. That’s why those moments when you get something, or so get it right, it feels so special – because it’s like, it’s crazy. It’s crazy that there are a thousand circles but found one overlap.”
Rhea Seehorn
The actress who portrayed Kim Wexler during six seasons of “Better Call Saul” became the first artist who directed a section of the show with Season 6 outpayment “Hit and Run.” Bryan Cranston also directed sections of “Saul” P forerone “Breaking Bad”; Like Cranston, she played an important role that demanded that she often “hoof it to the monitor.” Relying on the producing team was crucial.
“Michael Morris, our producing director, was kind of my right person,” Seehorn said. “I could look at playback when I needed it. And then I wanted to make sure I was only available as Kim, when I was in the scene. I would never want a stage partner to feel that their director observes them.”
For her section, Seehorn was originally worried about working with Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring; They had never shot a scene together. But Seehorn soon realized his way with him.
“He comes from theater, like me. So we had a good brevity from the beginning,” she said. “I just asked him,“ like to talk about the scene or beats or do you just want adjustments after the fact? “And he said,“ I would love to talk about the stage. I said: “Fantastic! For here are my six binders.” (Esposito would shoot his own episode later that season.)
Jason Bateman
On season 1 of “Ozark,” Bateman directed four episodes while he produced and the lead role in all 10. (He originally thought of directing them all.) He believes that a director’s role depends on making everyone “feel good”-something he learned this from another actor director, Michael Langdon, who Bateman worked as a child on “Little Children.
“It was very helpful to me to see that a call sheet can be shot without screaming,” he said. “It can be done well without being valuable, but only by simply encouraging and being supportive and staying away from something that might be better than you thought.”
Understanding actors also helped him to be an effective director. “One of the simple tricks is to go up and if you want an actor to do something, compliments that they have just done so and you want them to do a little more of it,” he said. “You have to think about what is the positive way of saying this as opposed to” stop doing it “, because it will make them nervous.”
As IndieWire’s Ben Travers noted back in 2020Bateman would “rather talk about appearance, tempo, feeling, sound and tone in his show – all form individual” magical tricks “that helps form” Ozark ” – than his performance in front of the camera, and he is anxious to control the conversation against his collaborators.”
“I mean, I’m a crew,” Bateman told Travers. “I am studying who the fork or the best boy or the site manager is, even less production designer (or) kinematographer. When I see a trailer, I immediately go to IMDB Pro and just scrub the crew on that movie, because I notice things that they do.
It worked: Bateman won Emmy 2019 for outstanding director for a drama series.
