8 Actors You Didn't Know Secretly Directed Films

If you know nothing else about Orson Welles, know this: dude was REALLY hard to work with.

While miles away from being the worst that the mid 20th century film auteur movement had to offer, the man was cursed with the kind of perfectionism and ego that so often plagues the auteur. If he had an idea for how a project should be done, it was usually his way or the highway.

Hence why it isn't hard for anyone to believe that, despite the 1949 film Black Magic maintaining to this day that its director was Gregory Ratoff, the good Mr. Welles had more than a little input on the finished product. Granted, these are mainly rumors, but Ratoff's biography in Britannica outright lists Welles as an uncredited co-director, so it has to be true.

While the finer points are mostly allegations, we do know that he helped direct several scenes, even as several different directors left the project before settling on Ratoff. So while Ratoff gets all the credit and royalties from the film as the director, you can plainly see Welles' fingerprints all over this movie, so it's anyone's guess who this movie's true director even is.