The actor-turned-director opens up about stepping behind the camera, on-screen representation and giving back to the fans.

By Morgan Jeffery

Published: Tuesday, 01 August 2023 at 11:25 AM


Alexander Vlahos is best known for starring in series including Merlin, Versailles, Sanditon and – most recently – Outlander, but over the past few years he has also been busy establishing himself as a director, helming a string of short films.

His back catalogue to date – including the films Lola (2020), Watchtower (2021), I Am One (2021), and Here We Are (2022) – will be screened at London’s Prince Charles Cinema on 12th August as part of An Evening with Alexander Vlahos.

The event – which will also include a Q&A and a meet-and-greet – is being described by Vlahos as a “gift to the fans”.

“I have been blessed in my career to have four very strong fandoms – Merlin, Sanditon, Versailles, and Outlander,” he tells RadioTimes.com.

“In the last couple years, I have been… not stepping away from acting – I’ll always be an actor – but directing is where my passion lies, and I am so honoured that the fans from each fandom have taken it upon themselves to be interested in my directing.

“I do a lot of conventions – some are really small and intimate and you get to spend a lot of time with fans, and some are juggernauts and it’s kind of at arm’s length. So this is my gift to the fans.”

It was while filming the third and final season of the historical drama series Versailles that Vlahos first started to feel unsettled in his role as an actor and began searching for something more.

“You’d think by that point, having lived and breathed the character for 20 episodes, that by season three there would be a sense of ease with it. What I actually found was quite the opposite.

“The first season felt really liberating and by season three I was getting frustrated. I was finding the process of filmmaking, and my role in that as an actor, to be really detrimental. I was not enjoying the process at all, because I was finding that decisions were, obviously, being taken out of my hands.

“Being a director – being able to have control in the edit, being able to make casting decisions… I wouldn’t say it was a specific epiphany moment, but it was a sort of progression of feeling uneasy about acting and and wanting to give [directing] a go.”

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His experiences with directing have, for the most part, enabled him to collaborate more effectively as an actor.

“Some directors just want you to be an actor and I’ve struggled with that, because I love being able to converse with directors. I found especially on something like Outlander, it’s such a juggernaut, you’re a tiny cog in a huge wheel and… [it’s like], ‘Just keep it going.’

“But I’ve worked with amazing directors and I’m able to have conversations with them beyond just the actor/director conversation. It’s not, ‘I’m an actor, this is my mark, you work around me…’ I’m able to facilitate shots for them, because I know what they’re trying to do, and that saves time, and that means the crew get to go home on time.”