Actors try their hand behind the lens

To be or not to be a director, seems to be the question on actors’ lips everywhere at the moment. Countless stars of the silver screen are currently swapping life in front of the camera for a piece of the action behind the lens.

Britain’s grand dame of film and theatre, Dame Judi Dench, is reportedly directing a short film, while Hollywood names such as Denzel Washington, Nicolas Cage, and George Clooney are all working on their directorial debuts.

But do actors have what it takes to make successful films or should they content themselves with dazzling the camera rather than directing it?

Hollywood heavyweight Mel Gibson who starred in and directed Braveheart said once: “I’ve done more acting than directing so it’s where the challenge is.”

Gibson is one actor to make the leap successfully from acting to directing, according to Charles Gant, film editor of heat magazine.

He believes actors can make good directors, but says there are no hard and fast rules as to who will succeed on the other side of the camera and who will flop.

“Having a director who understands what it’s like to be on the other side of a camera can be a huge help to actors,” he explains. “The obvious example is Quentin Tarantino – who was a failed actor – but those actors who work with him say he gives very good direction.

“Actors are very insecure people, even very successful ones, and getting the best out of them takes good skills.

“Some actors can certainly suffer if they get bad direction, and others, perhaps less good ones, can raise their game if they get good direction.”

But not all actors have made the transition successfully. “Johnny Depp made a film called The Brave and Ethan Hawke made one called Chelsea Walls, both of which had very bad reviews at Cannes Film Festivals,” Gant recalls.

He thinks one reason that actors do fail is their tendency to over-indulge their passion for character and dialogue, which is sometimes done to the detriment of the movie as a whole.

“There is the potential for actors to make very indulgent movies. Actors are interested in the character, the dialogue, the character’s journey and they may not be so good at looking at the overall shape of the film.

“There is a tendency to make quite indulgent, but quirky films which don’t cohere that well,” he says.

But what makes successful actors want to have a go at directing. Is it an egotistical belief that they would be good at it or the desire for a fresh challenge?

Gant suggests it is because they see it as a worthy alternative to acting. “There is a tendency for actors to feel they have to prove themselves,” he explains. “Creatively they feel their craft is slightly shallow, and there are ‘Renaissance figures’ in the industry who feel acting isn’t enough.”

John Walker, editor of Halliwell’s Film and Video Guide agrees that some actors need a fresh challenge, and says some do become more accomplished at directing than acting.

“It depends on whether you see Orson Welles as an actor who directed, or a director who acted. Citizen Kane is still the most popular film ever made,” he says.

Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood have also established themselves firmly as directors, and in Eastwood’s case he learned a lot from working with legendary Dirty Harry director Don Siegel, Walker says.

“The ones who do it best are those who spend a lot of years serving great directors,” he explains.

“Clint Eastwood is a very accomplished director, and he learned a great deal from Don Siegel. There is definitely a skill to be learnt and the actors who learn from directors are often the ones who do best.”

His theory is also borne out in one recent film, In The Bedroom, directed by actor Todd Field, who previously starred as Nick Nightingale in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

“From Stanley I learnt that you should be really excited about a film and let it possess you because it is going to be with you for a very long time,” Field said at the time.

“He also taught me to respect my actors and that films are ultimately about human beings. That, he believed, was where a director’s attention should be and not on doing goofy things with the camera.”

This is one of the most important skills actors bring to directing, Walker says. “A lot of directors are not very good with actors. Hitchcock, while he was a brilliant director, called actors ‘cattle’, and other directors can be contemptuous of actors.

“Actors-turned-directors do have the advantage of understanding actors and being good with actors.”

But he feels those who choose to act in the movies they direct often suffer. “It’s often better if they don’t do both,” he says.

Or as Mel Gibson once put it: “I like directing and I like acting but doing them at the same time is a test of your sanity.”