An actor who decides to direct could encourage an eyeroll: Nicely, in fact they’ll. After main a success present, what producer will say no?
A robust actor who desires to direct has a bonus others received’t. On the similar time, to develop into administrators Tyler James Williams, Ayo Edebiri, Jason Bateman, and Rhea Seehorn needed to be prepared to step away from the consolation zone of their experience and see themselves as newcomers.
Additionally they took benefit of a Hollywood truism: Folks work with folks they know, and the one approach to make your self identified is to be wonderful across the individuals who can rent you to do the work. It’s the identical logic that creates a script supervisor-director (Karyn Kusama), a PA-producer (Kevin Feige), or an artwork coordinator-Oscar-winning manufacturing designer (Hannah Beachler).
Right here’s what these actors say they discovered whereas making the transition.
Tyler James Williams
Again when he was the lead in “Everyone Hates Chris,” Williams started peppering “Everyone” producer-director Jerry Levine with questions. As he informed IndieWire’s Proma Khosla in February 2025, he fell in love not simply with being on TV however with the prospect of creating it.
The dream got here true in Season 4 of “Abbott Elementary” with episode 13, “The Science Truthful,” however Williams realized that his dream was significantly bigger than anticipated. The mockumentary fashion meant a single scene may demand crossing three units at one time.
“We had a variety of dialog about not simply the place the digital camera may very well be for the shot, however does that make sense for the documentarian on the opposite aspect of that digital camera?” he stated. “Taking part in with these digital camera operators and cameras as characters on this world, what are their opinions on every thing? Why are they getting this shot the way in which they’re? It influenced a variety of the selections I made.”
Williams’ prep started months upfront. He sat in on manufacturing conferences, tone conferences, idea conferences. He talked with the crew, with the digital camera division, with govt producer Randall Einhorn. And he started breaking down the episode define even earlier than he had dialogue or characters.
“As a result of I do know the area, and I do know form of the language of our present and the way it works, I can begin understanding how this wants to maneuver and what this must appear to be,” he stated. “It’s actually laborious to elucidate, and I suppose that’s the place the the imaginative and prescient a part of it is available in, the place I simply begin to see it as I’m studying. I can form of see it shifting in actual time.”
Ayo Edebiri
By the point Edebiri joined “The Bear,” she had dozens of performing credit, she’d been a narrative editor on “Sunnyside,” a workers author on “Dickinson,” and a author and consulting producer on “What We Do within the Shadows” and “Massive Mouth.” Nonetheless, she’d by no means gotten to direct.
Earlier than she directed “The Bear” (Season 3, episode 6, “Napkins”), she acquired a crash course on TV directing from the Administrators Guild of America‘s First-Time Episodic Director Orientation Program. (It’s a DGA requirement for a sequence that “employs a ‘first-time Director’ to direct an episode of a dramatic tv, Excessive Funds SVOD sequence, or Excessive Funds AVOD sequence.”) She stated it was “in all probability one of many coolest, biggest issues I’ve ever completed.”
“The factor that I walked away with essentially the most was that the one unsuitable approach to direct — effectively, there’s in all probability a variety of unsuitable methods, however past not speaking and never being open — isn’t discovering your manner,” stated Edebiri. “Should you attempt to do anyone else’s manner, it’s not going to work. Our instructors have been so useful with actually illustrating their variations — and that they have been profitable with their variations — and so encouraging us to search out our our methods of speaking, stressing the truth that you all the time should be speaking.”
Her instructors included legends comparable to Paris Barclay, Keith Powell, and Dr. Valerie Weiss, however Edebiri needed to depend on her personal instincts and the readiness of her forged and crew.
“It’s important to have a certain quantity of ego and a certain quantity of assuredness in your choices, however there must be area for collaboration, and to even be unsuitable, or to not have the reply,” she stated. “It’s this actually miraculous quantity of collaboration … It’s like making a Venn diagram, however out of a thousand circles. That’s why these moments while you get one thing, otherwise you get it proper, it does really feel so particular — as a result of it’s like, that’s insane. That’s insane that there’s a thousand circles however discovered the one overlapping level.”
Rhea Seehorn
The actress who portrayed Kim Wexler throughout six seasons of “Higher Name Saul” grew to become the primary performer to direct an episode of the present with Season 6 installment “Hit and Run.” Bryan Cranston additionally directed episodes of “Saul” predecessor “Breaking Dangerous”; like Cranston, she performed a serious function that required she ceaselessly “hoof it to the monitor.” Counting on the manufacturing workforce was very important.
“Michael Morris, our producing director, was form of my right-hand particular person,” stated Seehorn. “I may watch playback after I wanted it. After which I wished to make it possible for I used to be simply out there as Kim, as soon as I used to be within the scene. I might by no means need a scene accomplice to really feel like their director is observing them.”
For her episode, Seehorn was initially anxious about working with Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring; they’d by no means shot a scene collectively. Nonetheless, Seehorn quickly realized her manner in with him.
“He’s from theater, as am I. So we had an excellent shorthand from the start,” she stated. “I simply merely requested him, ‘Do like speak concerning the scene or beats or do you simply solely need changes after the actual fact?’ And he stated, ‘I’d love to speak concerning the scene. Thanks very a lot.’ I stated, ‘Incredible! As a result of right here’s my six binders.’” (Esposito would shoot his personal episode later that season.)
Jason Bateman
On Season 1 of “Ozark,” Bateman directed 4 episodes whereas producing and starring in all 10. (He initially meant to direct all of them.) He believes a director’s function hinges on ensuring everyone seems to be “feeling good” — one thing he discovered this from one other actor-director, Michael Langdon, who Bateman labored as a baby on “Little Home on the Prairie.”
“It was very useful for me to see {that a} name sheet can get shot with out yelling,” he stated. “It may be completed effectively with out being treasured, however simply by merely encouraging and being supportive and staying out of the way in which of one thing that may be higher than what you thought.”
Understanding actors additionally helped him be an efficient director. “One of many simple methods is to go up and in order for you an actor to do one thing, praise on them having simply completed it and also you need them to do some extra of it,” he stated. “You gotta consider what’s the constructive approach to say this versus ‘Cease doing that,’ as a result of that’s gonna make them nervous.”
As IndieWire’s Ben Travers famous again in 2020, Bateman would “slightly speak concerning the look, tempo, really feel, sound, and tone of his present — all of which kind particular person ‘magic methods’ that assist form ‘Ozark’ — than his efficiency in entrance of the digital camera, and he’s desperate to steer the dialog towards his collaborators.”
“I imply, I’m a crew dork,” Bateman informed Travers. “I research who the gaffer or the perfect boy or the situation supervisor is, not to mention manufacturing designer [or] cinematographer. Once I see a trailer, I’m instantly going over to IMDB Professional and simply scouring the crew of that film, as a result of I’m noticing issues that they’re doing. I need to see who these persons are in order that possibly sooner or later, if I’m fortunate sufficient to construct a crew, I’m going to recollect these names and see in the event that they’re keen on becoming a member of the workforce.”
It labored: Bateman received the 2019 Emmy for Excellent Directing for a Drama Sequence.