Go Shoot Yourself: Evaluating the Acting Chops of Directors Who Cast Themselves

There's a thin line between directing and acting, which explains why so many celebrated actors have taken a turn behind the camera (Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Barbra Streisand, Kevin Costner and Sarah Polley are just a few of the more acclaimed examples). It would also explain why so many directors have chosen to step in front of the camera—whether for a quick cameo or a leading role.

Here, we're Evaluating the Acting Chops of 20 Directors Who Cast Themselves. It's gonna get nasty.

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Written by Jennifer M. Wood (@j_m_wood)

Face it: A head of hair like Michael Bay's deserves a little screen time. And sometimes the King of Big-Budget Crap just can't help himself. He's done cameos as a NASA scientist in Armageddon (presumably to keep an eye on the scientific accuracy of the film) and as a driver in Bad Boys 2.

Considering how terrible Bay's movies usually are, his occasional presence in them admittedly does little to worsen the overall effect. In fact, we might even bet on Bay in an act-off with Megan Fox.

Yes, Roman Polanski is a polarizing figure. But he's also a master storyteller. Like other directors who cast themselves, his roles usually aren't very substantial. But they are juicy. And he delivers the goods. (It helps that he made his way to the director's chair as an actor.)

One of the most iconic images from Polanski's Oscar-winning 1974 film Chinatown is the bandaged nose of leading man Jack Nicholson; in the film, it's Polanski's character who necessitates the Band Aid.

Hollywood lost one of its true greats in 2008, when Sydney Pollack passed away from cancer. Though he was a filmmaker first—directing 20 films and producing more than 40 for the likes of George Clooney and Pollack's longtime business partner Anthony Minghella (who passed away at the age of 54 just two months before Pollack)—Pollack clearly understood the art of performance.

In addition to directing a dozen actors to Oscar nominations, Pollack made some powerful statements of his own in front of the camera, working with the likes of Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut) and Woody Allen (Husbands and Wives). But his best role was in a film of his own: 1982's Oscar-winning Tootsie. Pollack's creative differences with Dustin Hoffman on the set led to Hoffman's suggestion that Pollack play the role of George Fields, an acting agent fed up with Hoffman's antics. The result is pure brilliance.

Like actor-director John Cassavetes before him, John Sayles is an indie film renaissance man. A protege of Roger Corman, Sayles' introduction to Hollywood was one of the no-budget schlocky variety. A year after penning the script for the cult classic Piranha, Sayles put up $30,000 of his own money to shoot Return of the Secaucus 7 (the film was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 1997).

As part of this low-budget heritage, Sayles played a role in his debut feature, and has continued to pop up in parts big and small. Perhaps most impressively, Sayles is totally able to hold his own against the acclaimed pros in his stable of actors, including Chris Cooper and David Strathairn.

Though he was equal parts actor, writer, and director, for Orson Welles, appearing in his films was simply another way to maintain control over the creative process.

His most notable role, of course, is the one that kickstarted his career: Charles Foster Kane, a media magnate who rose from the ashes then lost it all. Welles was just 26 years old when he made the film that has topped every "Best Film Ever" list in the past 70 years. Ironically enough, the film's unprecedented success way in many ways Welles' own undoing.

Unable to match this original achievement, Welles eventually had to resort to taking whatever crappy acting role came his way, including voiceovers for Magnum P.I. and The Transformers: The Movie.

Truth be told, it's difficult to actually rate Alfred Hitchcock's skills as an actor. Though he popped up in almost 40 films between 1926 and 1976, his preferred MO was as a cameo only—sitting next to a main character on a train or walking past another with a pair of fluffy dogs.

One thing is for sure: the Master of Suspense's blink-or-you'll-miss-'em pop-ups kept sharp-eyed audience members on their toes.

Whether or not you can relate to his blue-collar kind of filmmaking—one where close-but-dysfunctional Irish Catholic families are a main source of interest—there's no denying Edward Burns' impact on the American independent film movement. It all started when The Brothers McMullen (which Burns wrote, directed, produced, starred in and financed) premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival; the flick—which had cost Burns $24,000 to make—was picked up by Fox Searchlight and went on to gross more than $10 million at the box office.

It was just the beginning of Burns' roller coaster ride through Hollywood, both as a filmmaker and actor. Like many actors, Burns has his shtick, which works better in some roles than it does others. Like John Cassavetes before him, he's a proponent of the "one for them, one fore me" philosophy of filmmaking, meaning that he'll do a bid-budget project to finance his next indie. All in all, Burns is a reliable actor—and one who knows his own material best.

As long as Clint leaves the empty chair at home, we're cool with what he's doing both in front of the camera and behind it. A staple of Hollywood since the 1950s, Eastwood is clearly an example of an actor who directs. And while we've tried to limit this list to directors who act, his inclusion here is for a couple of reasons:

1. Clint made his directorial debut in 1971, and has directed 32 features since then.

2. Of Clint's 10 Oscar nominations, eight have been for his work behind the camera.

3. It's for the films that he has directed himself that Clint has received the most acclaim for his acting (see Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby). In fact, Clint's only recognition as an actor by The Academy has been for his own directorial efforts.

The moral of the story? Clint should only appear in the films he directs.

Eli Roth's appearance in his debut feature, Cabin Fever, was a result of the original actor dropping out. But he clearly doesn't mind the bright lights shining in his eyes. Roth has had fun chewing up the scenery with brief appearances in many of his films since, including Hostel and Nicolás López's Aftershock, which Roth wrote, produced and stars in.

He's also played bit parts in the work of some of his fellow cameo-loving buddies, including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Roth is personable enough to pull off a small scene here or there without ruining the movie; let's just hope he doesn't take any acting tips from QT.

Like Clint Eastwood, Charlie Chaplin is better known as an actor. But his filmography is more akin to a Woody Allen type, meaning that the better description for what he does is "actor-director," as Chaplin directed just about every film in which he ever starred (IMDb lists 72 directing credits and 86 for acting).

Simply put: if there were no Charlie Chaplin the director, there would be no Charlie Chaplin the actor. And the world of film would be much worse off for it.

In the 1990s, the Sundance Film Festival was a breeding ground for indie moviemakers looking to achieve worldwide acclaim. It's the venue that turned Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, Darren Aronofsky, Jim Jarmusch, and Paul Thomas Anderson into household names. And in 1994 it chose Kevin Smith as its poster child, when he premiered his sub-$26,000 black-and-white Clerks.

The film struck a chord with young viewers—and filmmakers—across the country and went on to gross more than $3 million in theaters. It also made a star of Smith's own character in the film, Silent Bob, who—true to his name—remained silent for most of the film. But like other indie filmmakers of his generation, Smith's presence in his own films offer some of his movies' best scenes; it's not Oscar-worthy acting, but it's genuine.

Few directors—living or otherwise—can match Quentin Tarantino’s creativity. But plenty of actors—including the ones whose headshots end up at the bottom of the pile every time—could do a better job with the roles he's taken for himself in his own films. We'll let him have Reservoir Dogs, if only because he was young, excited, had very few lines and was quickly shot and killed. But when you've got a pivotal role to fill in a film about a delicate topic like slavery, we do not want to see QT approximating some sort of Australian accent. In fact, Tarantino should really let his films do his talking; he's the ultimate example of a director who'd be better neither seen nor heard.

M. Night Shyamalan seems intent on proving there's no job in the film industry he can't handle. Unfortunately, when you become an overnight moviemaking sensation (which is exactly what The Sixth Sense turned this writer-director into), few people are going to be brave enough to tell you "no." But studio heads should have shouted a vehement "hell no!" against Shyamalan's repeated attempts to cast himself in his own films.

While his characters never logged much screen time—which is fortunate, as he is painful to watch on-screen, especially when acting alongside actual talents like Paul Giamatti—he hasn't done much to help his reputation as a megalomaniac by casting himself in his films' most powerful roles. In the unbearable Lady in the Water, for example, he plays Vick Ran, an author whose ideas are so brilliant, they will change the course of humanity for the better. Umm, really?

Albert Brooks' (born Albert Einstein) path to director-dom came via a stand-up comedy career in the 1960s and '70s, which would help explain his ease in front of an audience. In 1975, he made his directorial debut with the short film The Famous Comedians School, followed by a half-dozen shorts for Saturday Night Live, then a slew of well-received features including Real Life (a pioneer of the mockumentary genre), Lost in America, Defending Your Life, and Mother. But Brooks is one of those rare directors whose acting career has overshadowed his efforts behind the camera.

He brought a memorable level of comic relief to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, was a standout in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight, played a great badass in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1987 for his hilarious turn as a newsman with a perspiration problem in Broadcast News. (He is also someone you should absolutely be following on Twitter.)