With more and more actors moving behind the camera, Rory Doherty examines if this is just the latest example of an already inaccessible industry getting worse.
Patrick Wilson, known to movie-going audiences everywhere as “oh, it’s that guy!” has just directed a film. Insidious: The Red Door is the actor’s first film as director, but his third film as struggling father and reluctant demon fighter Josh Lambert in the Insidious series, which has reached its fifth instalment with The Red Door. Wilson has made a career of being a reliable character actor in increasingly un-serious entertainment (his trajectory from Angels in America to Moonfall should be studied) so it’s great to see him level up to the director chair in a franchise launched by one of his biggest filmmaking collaborators – James Wan. The Red Door comes the same year as Creed III, the directorial debut from Michael B. Jordan, who also starred in previous instalments of the boxing franchise, but it’s not the only directorial debut from an actor releasing in 2023.
Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria has made a biopic about, of all things, the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and there are smaller dramas and comedies coming soon from Michael Shannon, WandaVision’s Randall Park, Midnight Mass’ Hamish Linklater, and Booksmart’s Molly Gordon – all original films with few A-listers in the credits. There are also non-debut films from still-working actors Ben Affleck (Air) and Elizabeth Banks (Cocaine Bear).
It’s encouraging to see so many actors channel their filmmaking talents and experience with actors in a new, challenging way, and there’s a rich, extensive history of actors graduating to directing that goes back to when cinema began. Being a successful actor by no means pigeonholes your talents or disqualifies you from moving behind the camera – Hollywood is gate-keep-y enough without deciding which talents deserve to express themselves.
But having a recognisable name and face does make the difficult process of getting your film funded and produced a whole lot easier than it currently is for the countless filmmakers out there with equal talent and promise.
READ MORE: Patrick Wilson and the cast on Insidious: The Red Door: ‘I wanted to give audiences something new’
Thanks to the aftereffects of the streaming empire’s slow implosion, a faltering post-pandemic restart for the indie box office, and a widespread studio groupthink that IP is the only surefire way to make money anymore, it’s an incredibly punishing time for original voices to break through in Hollywood and further afield.
This is an industry-wide problem, but when added to the systemic obstacles faced by women, people of colour, and queer filmmakers, it becomes nearly impossible to imagine how the next generation of creative voices is expected to be nurtured.
Even filmmakers who are lucky enough to make a splash with their debuts in a punishing landscape, like Natalie Erika James with her Aussie haunted house film Relic or Michael Sarnoski for his Nic Cage cooking-and-grief story Pig, are relegated to tenuous, half-baked, and thoroughly uninspired franchises as if the only use that Hollywood has for people with original storytelling impulses is to graft it onto one that already exists. Apartment 7A and A Quiet Place: Day One don’t promise to add anything new to their predecessors, but the new instalments do at least make you remember them!
It’s what makes Wilson and Jordan’s directorial debuts stand out – they are helming sequels late in the series’ lifetime, ones that have little to lose if they aren’t very good and are already guaranteed a certain amount of attention.
There’s some nuance afforded here: Jordan is a Black director whose debut opened to a rare $58 million, continuing a trilogy that’s been exclusively directed by Black filmmakers. Both he and Wilson have decades of experience working closely with directors and are personally tied to the franchises they’re now continuing. But whenever you wade into the really thorny issue of who deserves what opportunities, you have to bear in mind that it’s rarely a question of talent but one of access and about people on the outside not getting any.
That said, beginning a debate on who deserves what opportunities is by now regarded as a poor idea. We have access only to the products of these people’s aspirations, and assuming how easy or difficult it was for them to get there isn’t fair to anyone involved.
It’s not like Wilson, Jordan, or any of 2023’s actors-turned-directors have had zero difficulty getting the success they now enjoy, and just because they didn’t shout their directorial aspirations from the first moment we saw them on-screen doesn’t mean they haven’t felt them from day one. Perhaps getting a foothold in acting is simpler than directing, and they’ve been fighting resistance to get their first film made for years?
Still, it feels strange celebrating any new filmmaking voice coming from franchise efforts. It’s not just Insidious 5 and Creed III, but Smokin’ Hot and Air are literally sponsored by-products, blurring the lines between artistry and consumerism even more than they were already.
If we all agree that Insidious 5 and Creed III don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, it’s also easier to treat them as sizzle reels or trial runs for new directors to show their stuff before they’re able to lay their hands on a more artistically interesting story. But these sizzle reels still serve to beef up a corporation’s portfolio of existing properties.
The question marks that come up when discussing big actors debuting big, mainstream films as directors are not easy to answer, but they do deserve to be addressed. Instead of pitting nameless filmmakers against big-name actors shifting into directors, we should acknowledge that everyone’s dealing with the same poor artistic conditions enforced by those who have consolidated money and power. If the summer of Hollywood strikes should teach us anything, it’s that no one’s unaffected by corporate mistreatment.
What can be certain: if we defend Wilson and Jordan’s ascents to directing tentpole franchises, we must allocate equal attention to the actors debuting with indie fare. Michael Shannon’s Eric Larue, Emily Gordon’s Theater Camp, Randall Park’s Shortcomings, Hamish Linklater’s Downtown Owl: in a just world, these films would animate the same amount of conversation as Wilson and Jordan’s. 2023 can only be the year of actors-turned-directors if we don’t just highlight the films with numbers at the end of the titles.
Insidious: The Red Door is in cinemas now.
Patrick Wilson, known to movie-going audiences everywhere as “oh, it’s that guy!” has just directed a film. Insidious: The Red Door is the actor’s first film as director, but his third film as struggling father and reluctant demon fighter Josh Lambert in the Insidious series, which has reached its fifth instalment with The Red Door. Wilson has made a career of being a reliable character actor in increasingly un-serious entertainment (his trajectory from Angels in America to Moonfall should be studied) so it’s great to see him level up to the director chair in a franchise launched by one of his biggest filmmaking collaborators – James Wan. The Red Door comes the same year as Creed III, the directorial debut from Michael B. Jordan, who also starred in previous instalments of the boxing franchise, but it’s not the only directorial debut from an actor releasing in 2023.
Insidious: The Red Door is Ty Simpkins’ fourth role as Patrick Wilson’s son. Credit: Sony Pictures
Elizabeth Banks on the set of Cocaine Bear. Credit: Universal Pictures
Credit: Warner Bros.
Insidious: The Red Door is in cinemas now.
