CANNES, France (AP) — The Cannes Film Festival has played host to the directorial debuts of three stars: Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart and relative newcomer Harris Dickinson.

Their films are very different but the fulfillment of longtime dreams of being behind the camera. All three movies are part of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, which has helped launch the careers of directors like Yorgos Lanthimos, Lynne Ramsay and Molly Manning Walker.

At 28, Dickinson is an up-and-coming actor, known for “Babygirl,” “Where the Crawdads Sing” and the Palme d’Or-winning “Triangle of Sadness,” who worked for years to develop his film, “Urchin.”

Johansson, a two-time Oscar acting nominee who’s been a star since her teens and played Black Widow in multiple Marvel films, brought “Eleanor the Great,” a film about a nonagenarian who coopts her late friend’s Holocaust story, to Cannes this week.

Stewart, also an acting Oscar nominee, debuted “The Chronology of Water,” an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir, last week.

Awards for the Un Certain Regard section will be announced Friday, a day before the Cannes Film Festival closes.

Here’s what the actors-turned-directors had to say about their first forays into creating a film from behind the camera.

Harris Dickinson

on “Urchin”

“I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make films,” says Dickinson, who got his start as many young creators do now: on YouTube. He even had a web sketch series. “That was my first love, just making things.”

Dickinson’s profile as an actor has exploded in recent years, but his desire to direct was so strong, he started saying no to roles.

The film stars Frank Dillane — who won an acting honor in the Un Certain Regard competition — as a homeless Londoner suffering from drug addiction.

Scarlett Johansson on “Eleanor the Great”

Johansson is now one of the world’s most recognizable stars. She’s also one of its most respected, earning two Oscar nominations in 2020, for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit.”

Her success as an actor helped her take on new roles on films, including producing, and, now, directing.

The New York-set “Eleanor the Great” stars June Squibb as a 94-year-old who, out of grief and loneliness, takes over her friend’s story of Holocaust survival as her own.

Kristen Stewart on “The Chronology of Water”

Yuknavitch’s memoir recounts her surviving sexual abuse by her father and how she sought refuge in competitive swimming and, later, writing.

While Stewart expressed doubts that she offered much to her film’s star, Imogen Poots, in terms of useful direction, the actor disagrees.

“Kristen is incredibly present but at the same has this ability, like a plant or something, to pick up on a slight shift in the atmosphere where it’s like: ‘Wait a minute,'” Poots said, causing Stewart to laugh. “There is this insane brain at play and it’s a skill set that comes in the form of an intense curiosity.”