How common are actor directors?
Stephen Follows analysed the data.
recent actor-directed movies such as A Star Is Born (dir: Bradley Cooper), A Quiet Place (dir: John Krasinski) and Bohemian Rhapsody (effectively directed by Dexter Fletcher).
Across the 30 years I studied, 28.4% of directors have at least once received an acting credit on a movie within the same database.
This is higher than credits in most other roles, save only for producer and screenwriter. Almost half of the directors have also received one producer credit and a whopping 71% of directors also got a writing credit.
But , only 11.6% of movies released between 1998 and 2017 had an official cast credit for their director, that is, not the cameo role where they play Bored cashier or Drunk party guest.
Elizabeth Banks (a segment of Movie 43, Pitch Perfect 2 and is currently shooting the remake of Charlie's Angels)
Click here to see the full report https://stephenfollows.com/actor-directors/
Just how common are actor-directors? Film industry data hound Stephen Follows sifted through 30 years' worth of stats to find out. The issue is current thanks to the release of recent actor-directed movies such as A Star Is Born (directed by Bradley Cooper), A Quiet Place (directed by John Krasinski) and Bohemian Rhapsody (effectively directed by Dexter Fletcher). Follows discovered that 28.4% of directors have at least once received an acting credit on a movie within the same database. This is higher than credits in most other roles, except for producer and screenwriter, Follows says. And, almost half of the directors have also received one producer credit and a whopping 71% of directors also got a writing credit. However, only 11.6% of movies released between 1998 and 2017 had an official cast credit for their director, that is, not just a cameo role where they play a creditless character such as Steven Spielberg's 'popcorn eating man' in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, 1997.
Incidentally, Elizabeth Banks was the only woman on Follows' list of current actors directing films. She's doing a segment of Movie 43, Pitch Perfect 2 and the remake of Charlie's Angels.