Bill Hader names cinema’s most overlooked director: “I wish more people knew who he was”
In every corner of every city in every country across the world, people are dreaming about making it to the big time. They’re not just dreaming about getting the career they want, but they’re dreaming about making it to the absolute top. They want the awards and accolades, the global recognition, the stardom. They’re dreaming about being remembered. But the sad reality is that only a small fraction will do that, and even amongst those that do, some names never truly get the scale of celebration they deserve – Bill Hader wants to fix that, though, at least for one filmmaker.
That’s a pessimistic way to start, I know. But we can reframe it. While a name might never quite hit the dizzying pinnacles it deserves, or may fade over time as new and shiny stars emerge, there will always be lives touched. Even if a musician or a filmmaker or a visual artist fails to even spread their wings beyond the town they’re dreaming in, there will undoubtedly be people around them who are moved by their work and will remember them forever, tell others and spread the message of their work, even on a smaller scale.
Success and legacy can be very different things. Success might be measured in awards or the size of paycheques, but a legacy is about impact. Even if a person is underestimated or underrated in terms of measured success, the legacy they leave behind in the people they inspire or influence is something else.
Bill Hader feels that in his mission to draw more attention to one filmmaker he believes to be underrated. “I love Preston Sturges. Oh, my God—I wish more people knew who he was, and how much Preston Sturges is in so many of the movies that they love,” he said to the New Yorker, rallying for more people to appreciate the impact of Sturges.
Obviously, to many people, claiming Preston Sturges has gone unnoticed would be a ridiculous statement. He’s a multi-Oscar nominee, there is a documentary about his life, and he gave the world several great films.
But for Hader, there still isn’t enough applause. Sturges wasn’t just an actor, and he wasn’t just a director; he was both, and he was perhaps the first to be both successfully. After already making a name for himself as a performer, he was so determined to try being behind the camera that he sold the rights to his debut film, The Great McGinty, to the studio for $10 in exchange for being able to direct it. That chance paid off as it won him an Oscar for Best Screenplay and earned him the trust to direct more.
From then on, he navigated both worlds, working from the director’s chair and from the set as both an actor and a filmmaker, wearing even more hats as a writer. By simply doing that, he opened up the door for all the actors since who have been trusted to make movies as well as star in them—including Hader, who is often a producer as well as a performer.
