People ask me all the time: how do you do it? How do you write the script, step in front of the camera, and then call "action" from behind it — sometimes on the same project? The honest answer is that I don't always do it gracefully. But I do it, and I've learned a few things along the way that make the chaos manageable.
The Writer Has to Die Before the Director Can Live
The hardest transition is from writer to director. When you've written every line, you have a version of the scene living in your head — the exact rhythm, the precise pause, the way a character's voice cracks on a particular word. And then you get on set, and the actor does something completely different. Something better.
I had to learn to let the writer die in that moment. The script is a blueprint, not a contract. The best thing I ever did as a director was give myself permission to throw out my own stage directions when something more alive showed up in the room.
Acting in Your Own Work Is a Trap — and a Gift
Directing yourself is genuinely difficult. You can't watch yourself perform in real time. You're making micro-decisions about your own face while simultaneously tracking the frame, the other actors, the light. It splits your attention in ways that can hollow out a performance if you're not careful.
But there's a gift in it too. When you've written the character and you're directing the scene, you understand the subtext at a molecular level. You know exactly what the character is hiding, what they want, what they're afraid to say. That knowledge lives in your body when you step in front of the lens — and no amount of table work can replicate it.
The trick is to do all your director's work before the take, then forget you're a director the moment the camera rolls. Be an actor. Trust the prep.
The Schedule Is Everything
I write in the mornings. Always. Before the day has a chance to fill my head with logistics, emails, and the thousand small decisions that production demands. The first two hours of my day belong to the page. That's non-negotiable.
Directing lives in the afternoons and evenings — prep, rehearsal, shot lists, casting sessions. Acting prep happens in the margins: in the car, in the shower, during the walk between locations. You learn to use every pocket of time.
The biggest mistake I see multi-hyphenates make is trying to do all three things simultaneously in the same mental space. Compartmentalize. When you're writing, you're a writer. When you're on set, you're a director. When the camera rolls, you're an actor. The hats don't mix well in real time.
Why I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
The chaos is real. The exhaustion is real. There are days when I'm rewriting a scene at midnight that I'm supposed to direct at 7 AM and perform in at noon. It's not sustainable as a permanent state — but as a creative mode, it's electric.
When you control the whole pipeline — from the first word on the page to the final cut — you get to make something that is entirely, unapologetically yours. No translation errors between departments. No "that's not what I meant." The vision that lives in your head is the vision that ends up on screen or on stage.
That's worth the chaos. Every time.