The Actors Started Writing Because Nobody Else Was Going To

I want to write about a specific group of filmmakers. Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Eddie Redmayne, Emerald Fennell, Sarah Polley, Greta Gerwig, Alia Shawkat, Zoe Kazan, Paul Mescal (writing in progress), Dakota Johnson (writing in development), Charlotte Wells, Olivia Wilde, Regina Hall, Lake Bell, Natasha Lyonne, Rebecca Hall, Brady Corbet. The specific common feature is that all of them are actors who have, across the last decade, become writers, directors, or both. The specific quality of the resulting work is uneven. The specific pattern is important.

I am going to argue that the pattern is not coincidence. The specific actors in this group are writing and directing because the specific industry they work in has, across the same period, stopped producing the specific kind of films they want to be in. The actor-writer renaissance is, substantially, a response to a production shortage.

What they are making

Let me briefly catalogue some of the specific work.

Jesse Eisenberg wrote and directed When You Finish Saving the World (2022) and A Real Pain (2024). Both specifically deal with specific American Jewish interior life, specific family dynamics, specific contemporary neuroses. A Real Pain specifically uses Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as the two cousins visiting Poland. The film is 90 minutes, tightly constructed, specifically its own thing.

Kristen Stewart directed The Chronology of Water (2024), adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir. Stewart has said in interviews that the specific kind of film she wanted to direct is not the specific kind of film that most directors want to make.

Eddie Redmayne has been writing and developing multiple projects, including specific work he has described as directly responsive to the specific shortage of mid-budget adult drama.

Emerald Fennell wrote and directed Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023). Both films are specifically polarising; both specifically address material that a non-actor director might have been specifically reluctant to attempt.

Sarah Polley wrote and directed Stories We Tell (2012), Women Talking (2022). Both films are specifically her own, with specific filmmaking identities that would not have been produced inside conventional studio development.

Greta Gerwig is the specific commercial success story: she moved from acting in mumblecore-adjacent work to writing and directing Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019), and Barbie (2023). Each of those films is, in specific ways, a film only Gerwig could have made.

Brady Corbet wrote and directed The Brutalist (2024). The film is 215 minutes, VistaVision, shot on limited budget, specifically against every piece of contemporary conventional wisdom about what kind of film can be made. Corbet made it anyway.

Charlotte Wells wrote and directed Aftersun (2022). The film is specifically contained, specifically her, and specifically the kind of film that the current industry infrastructure is not routinely producing.

What the shortage is

The specific shortage driving the actor-writer shift is worth describing.

Mid-budget adult drama has contracted. Across the last fifteen years, the specific commercial category of mid-budget drama made for adults (the Sideways, Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tier of film) has substantially contracted. The specific studio infrastructure that funded these films has redirected capital toward franchise productions and prestige television. The specific roles that would have sustained a serious actor’s career in the 2005-2012 period are specifically fewer.

The specific script pipeline has thinned. The screenwriters who would have been writing the specific material has, across the same period, moved substantially into television. The specific film screenwriters who remain are concentrated at specific studios working on specific genre and franchise material. The specific supply of original adult-drama scripts has contracted. The actors who want to be in adult drama are finding less material.

Directors are less willing to attempt specific subjects. The specific risk-aversion of contemporary film production has reduced the specific range of subjects that mainstream directors are attempting. The specific kinds of films that actors in this generation remember loving (European-influenced adult drama, specific intimate character studies, specific difficult material) are being attempted by fewer mainstream directors than a generation ago.

International co-productions are harder to assemble. The specific financing structures that used to support mid-budget international-adjacent work (European soft-money arrangements, specific co-production treaties, specific prestige-distribution deals) have specifically weakened. The specific infrastructure that funded Polley’s early work, specifically, is partially gone.

The actors who are now writing and directing are filling a specific vacuum. They are not doing it because they always wanted to. They are doing it because the specific material they wanted to act in was not being made for them.

What the films specifically share

The actor-written-and-directed films of the last decade specifically share certain characteristics, and the characteristics are worth naming.

Specific interest in interior life. Actor-directed films are, characteristically, specifically attentive to what characters are thinking and feeling, at specific levels of detail that writer-directors without acting experience sometimes bypass. Eisenberg on Jewish interior life, Gerwig on adolescent female interior life, Wells on specific daughter-father interior geometry, Fennell on specific class interior states. The actor-director is specifically sensitive to what the actor has to work with.

Specific roles for specific performers. The actor-director is writing roles that other actors will want to perform. Gerwig’s Little Women casting. Eisenberg’s A Real Pain casting of Culkin. Fennell’s Saltburn casting of Keoghan. The actor-director understands what specific performers can do and writes specific material that lets them do it.

Specific tonal control. Actor-directors are, on average, more tonally specific than writer-directors without acting backgrounds. Aftersun is specifically calibrated in its specific tone across every scene. A Real Pain holds a specifically specific comedic-dramatic register. Promising Young Woman commits to its specific tonal volatility. The specific tonal confidence comes partly from the specific acting experience; the director knows what specific register a specific scene is sustaining because the director has performed in specific registers professionally.

Specific running times. The actor-directed films are, on average, shorter than the prestige-director standard. A Real Pain is 89 minutes. Aftersun is 101 minutes. Priscilla is 113 minutes. The actor-director is specifically disciplined about length, probably partly because the actor-director has been in many films that were too long and has developed specific preferences about what length serves the specific material.

The exceptions

Not all of the work is good. I should be honest. Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling (2022) has specific problems that are visible in the film. Some of the actor-directed work across this decade has been specifically uneven. The category does not produce good films automatically.

But the pattern of effort is instructive even where specific films fail. The specific commitment of actors to make their own material, at scale, is telling about the specific industrial conditions. An actor at the level of Olivia Wilde or Rebecca Hall or Regina Hall has specific career options that do not require the specific difficulty of writing and directing. The specific choice to do this work anyway is a specific statement about what they find available.

What I am watching for

The next wave of actor-writers is already visible. Paul Mescal has specific directing ambitions, reportedly with a script in late development. Dakota Johnson has specific projects in production. Saoirse Ronan has been developing specific material. Andrew Scott has been writing. Regina Hall is in specific pre-production.

I want to see what this generation makes. I also want the specific industry to respond by producing more of the specific material that the actors are currently having to make themselves. The actor-writer renaissance is a specific response to a specific shortage. A healthier industry would not require it. A healthier industry would have the specific scripts available, the specific directors working, the specific mid-budget drama category functioning at specific scale.

Until that happens, the actors will keep writing. Support the specific work. A Real Pain is a specific gem. Aftersun is a specific achievement. The Brutalist is specific. Each of these films exists because a specific actor decided to make it despite specific commercial conditions that would not have greenlit it through normal channels.

The specific lesson is that serious filmmaking is, increasingly, a self-organising practice of specific people who will not wait for the industry to commission the work. This is a specific kind of cultural survival. It is worth noticing. It is worth supporting. And it is, in the longer run, probably where the next decade of serious American filmmaking is going to come from.