Whenever you’re watching your favorite movies you probably don't think about who’s behind them. Directors are the ones responsible for bringing stories to life and creating the movies you love. It takes a huge team of people to make a movie, but the director guides everyone to make their vision of the movie a reality. A lot of people assume you have to go to film school to become a director, but that’s not true. It’s possible to become a director without going to school and getting a degree.
There’s no set path for becoming a director. But there are some things all directors have in common. They work hard, practice all the time, and don’t give up no matter how many times they get rejected. Here are 10 directors who started out with different careers before they made their dreams come true.
10 John Huston
Before he passed away, John Huston was in the film industry for 40 years and directed hit movies such as The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen, and Fat City. But before that, he was a boxer and he used his past career as an inspiration for some of his movies. According to MEL Magazine, “Boxing was a subject Huston touched on in his work, most notably with 1972’s Fat City, about a drunken, flailing fighter (played by Stacy Keach) hoping for a shot at redemption.”
9 Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese is considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in film history. He’s 78-years-old and is still creating masterpieces. He’s been in the film industry for decades, but he almost became a priest before he realized what he wanted to do and his religion inspired him to create his movies. According to MEL Magazine, “Scorsese’s religious faith is often front and center in his movies. His characters are frequently haunted by guilt, wrestling with a spirituality that contradicts their base, violent tendencies.”
8 Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow has directed more recent hits such as The Hurt Locker, Detroit, and Zero Dark Thirty. In her 20s, she was renovating lofts in New York and trying to become a painter. But she realized she could reach more people with a different form of art—film. She told Time that fine art “requires that you come to it with a certain amount of information, a context… you don’t necessarily need that with film. A movie is accessible, available. That was exciting to me from a political standpoint.”
7 Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola directed multiple hits in the ‘90s and early 2000s, such as Lost in Translation, Marie Antionette, The Godfather: Part III, and The Virgin Suicides. She attended Mills College and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) before she became a director, but dropped out and started a clothing line called MilkFed. The clothing line lasted for a few years, but now her career is completely focused on film.
6 Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is mostly known as an actor, but he’s directed a few movies too. He directed some movies from the late ‘60s to the ‘90s, including Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He tried out a few different careers before he went into the film industry. “He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television,” according to IMDb. He might not be directing anymore, but he’s still starring in movies even though he’s 95-years-old.
5 Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow has created iconic comedy films such as Knocked Up, This Is 40, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. He tried to be a stand-up comedian before making his career as a director. That must be why his films are so hilarious. According to MEL Magazine, “Plenty of stand-ups have gone on to become filmmakers, including Woody Allen, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. (You know, maybe this isn’t the best company to compare oneself to.) Nonetheless, Apatow’s stand-up roots have informed some of his best work, especially 2009’s Funny People, which starred Adam Sandler as a former stand-up who’s now a huge, hacky movie star.”
4 Jennifer Lee
Jennifer Lee is the first female feature film director at Disney Animation Studios and directed the legendary movie, Frozen, along with its sequel, Frozen 2. She wrote both films and wrote a few other Disney movies as well, such as Wreck-It-Ralph, Zootopia, and A Wrinkle in Time. She’s now the Chief Creative Officer at Disney Studios and is working on more movies. But before her success as a filmmaker, she worked as a graphic artist in New York and designed audiobooks for Random House. She switched her career when she got her master’s degree in film at Columbia University. If she had kept working as a graphic artist in New York, we would've never known about the inspiring characters in Frozen.
3 Tim Burton
Tim Burton is known for his dark fantasy themed movies, such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie. He also produced the iconic holiday movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Millions of people know about his movies, but they might not know he started out as an animator before becoming a director. According to IMDb, “After graduating from high school, he attended California Institute of the Arts. Like so many others who graduated from that school, Burton's first job was as an animator for Disney.”
2 Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino is a huge director who has made hits such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Inglourious Basterds. But he had a unique start to his career. He worked at an adult movie theater for a little while, but that’s where he realized he wanted to become a director. He said in an interview, “They were teaching camera terminology in this acting class, so I actually was able to understand what ‘rack focus’ and ‘whip pan,’ and all that stuff meant. And at some point in that acting class I just realized that I need to be a director… I realized that I loved movies too much to simply appear in them. I wanted the movies to be my movies.”
1 James Cameron
James Cameron is one of the most successful directors in Hollywood who created classics such as Titanic and Avatar, which both became the highest grossing movies of all time. He began his film career in 1978, but he had a couple of different jobs before then. He worked as a janitor and then a truck driver in his early 20s, but quit to pursue his career in film full time. If he didn’t take that leap of faith and quit his job as a truck driver, we would’ve never been able to see the inspiring masterpieces he’s created.