Help shape these rankings by voting on this list of Character Actors Who Became Successful Movie Directors
Voting Rules
Vote up the actors with the best directing careers.
In today's film industry, it's not uncommon to see mega-famous movie stars stepping behind the camera to direct. Clint Eastwood is almost as famous for works he's directed as he is for his acting. Bradley Cooper and Ben Affleck have also done stints helming movies that have won Oscars. Some might not even remember that Jordan Peele was an accomplished comedic actor before he became a household name for directing Get Out and Us.
But not every actor who goes on to a successful directing career is A-list famous. In fact, some of them might even be people you didn't realize were directors at all. They stood out in recognizable roles in memorable movies, but never quite made it to the next level. This is a list of classic movie "That Guy" and "That Girl" actors who went on to greater success as directors. Vote up the actors you think went on to have the best directing careers.
Notable Acting Roles: Soap in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Cody in Kick-Ass, Marcus "Pinky" Pinzerowski in Doom
Notable Films Directed: Rocketman, Eddie the Eagle
Fletcher began his directing career by taking over for Bryan Singer when he exited the Oscar-winning Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody and directing the Elton John movie Rocketman. Prior to that, he was most well known for his memorable turn as low-level British hoodlum Soap in Guy Ritchie's debut film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Notable Acting Roles: Spock in Star Trek, Dr. David Kibner in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Notable Films Directed: Three Men and a Baby, The Good Mother, Funny About Love
Nimoy got his first crack at directing for the big screen with 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, a film that resurrected his most popular acting role. Ironically, it would also launch his career as a successful director. He followed upStar Trek III with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a massively successful comedy that cemented him as an A-list director of funny movies. His biggest non-Trek movie was Three Men and a Baby, which was the fifth-biggest box-office hit of 1987.
Notable Acting Roles: Commander Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Bob Spiegel in Camp Nowhere
Notable Films Directed: Clockstoppers, Thunderbirds, Castle, Burn Notice
Jonathan Frakes followed in the footsteps of fellow Star Trek first officer actor Leonard Nimoy when he was hired to direct the second Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. That film ended up being the second biggest Star Trek movie ever at the box office before inflation (until the J.J. Abrams reboots). He directed the follow-up to First Contact, Insurrection, and the hit kids' time-travel action movie Clockstoppers.
After the box office success of First Contact and Clockstoppers, Frakes became one of the hottest directors in Hollywood. His third film, which hypothetically would have catapulted him to even greater heights, was Thunderbirds, a live-action adaptation of the British puppet spy series that gained a cult following in the United States. The expectation was that Thunderbirds would be a huge hit, which spawned reports that Frakes was in the running for the next Superman movie and had meetings with Warner Bros. executives about taking the job. He would have easily eclipsed Nimoy as the most accomplished Star Trek cast member turned director.
Sadly, Thunderbirds was a box office dud, which grounded Frakes's movie directing career. Instead, he went on to find steady work directing and executive producing TV series like Roswell, Castle, Burn Notice, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Leverage, The Librarians, and Star Trek: Discovery. Still not a bad resume at all.
Notable Acting Roles: Ronna Martin in Go, Merle in Existenz, Sally Salt in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Notable Films Directed: Away from Her
After an acting career that started when she was a child in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Canadian-born actor Sarah Polley turned heads with the critically acclaimed arthouse film Away from Her, about a couple struggling with the ramifications of Alzheimer's disease. The film, based on a short story by Alice Munro, earned Polley an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. It would be another four years before Polley would direct again: 2011's Take This Waltz, starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen, and 2012's documentary Stories We Tell, which centers around her own family life and questions about her parentage.
Notable Acting Roles: Zed in Police Academy 2-4, Fred P. Chaney in Hot to Trot, Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged
Notable Films Directed:Shakes the Clown, World's Greatest Dad
Stand-up comedian and actor Bobcat Goldthwait was one of the biggest comedy stars of the '80s, taking his well-established stage persona onto the big screen in the recurring role of Zed in three films in the long-running Police Academy franchise, plus the lead role in the talking horse movie Hot to Trot. Goldthwait became infamous for bizarre appearances on late-night talk shows. As his acting career slowed down, Goldthwait reinvented himself as a director of fiercely unique, uncompromising independent cinema, starting with 1992's black comedy Shakes the Clown, in which Bobcat also acts as the titular alcoholic birthday clown who gets framed for a crime he did not commit. He wouldn't return to the director's chair until 2006's controversial Sleeping Dogs Lie. He then directed his good friend Robin Williams in World's Greatest Dad in 2009. He continues to make well-regarded indie movies, direct TV shows like RuPaul's Netflix sitcom AJ and the Queen, and release new stand-up material.
Notable Acting Roles: Lyle Pike in Blind Fury, Dietrich Hassler in Face/Off, Captain Alex Streck in The Astronaut's Wife
Notable Films Directed: The Notebook, John Q., Alpha Dog, The Other Woman
Being the son of Hollywood royalty John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands gave Nick a huge leg up when entering show business. He followed in his father's footsteps as a multi-hyphenate actor/writer/director triple threat. He was able to transition from playing evil sidekick to Nick Cage in Face/Off to directing one of the most beloved romances in cinema history, The Notebook. Cassavetes became in-demand enough after that film that he was initially attached to direct Iron Man for Marvel Studios. In a nod to his lineage in Hollywood, Cassavetes cast his mother, Rowlands, as the elderly Allie in the present-day scenes of The Notebook.
