"They say write about what you know," muses Chris Pine. "I'm from Los Angeles, and I'm a third-generation actor, so I grew up around show business."

Pine is the son of CHiPs actor Robert Pine and the grandson of Anne Gwynne, who gained fame as one of Hollywood's original scream queens. Pine eventually found his own way to the theater and then to the big screen, making his film debut in 2004's The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Now, the actor — best known for starring in Star Trek and Wonder Woman — is taking on a new role, marking his directorial debut with Poolman.

"I had this idea for an occupation — a poolman — and the name, Darren Barrenman, and both of those together just made me smile," he says of Poolman's origin story. To that, he added a lifetime of personal experience. "Even though the story is outlandish and one of fiction, it draws upon my experiences living on and adjacent to the Boulevard of Dreams. What I love about it most is that it's purely an expression of joy."

Pine initially sought out a screenwriter, but when that didn't pan out, he took the challenge upon himself, writing the screenplay with producer Ian Gotler. The result is Poolman, a Chinatown-inspired absurdist noir that stars Pine as said poolman, a native Angeleno who gets caught up in a scandal involving corrupt politicians, greedy land developers, and a femme fatale. The action, as it were, unfolds on the periphery of Tinseltown.

"There's a scene in the film where Danny DeVito's character, who is a B-movie horror director from the '80s, says to Annette Bening's character that his agent finally called him back and offered him $75,000 an episode to direct a sitcom, which is an ode to my family," the first-time filmmaker acknowledges. "Growing up in the '80s, all my parents really wanted was my dad to get a great gig that shot in L.A. for a great amount of money."

Before stepping behind the camera, Pine sought advice from the filmmakers he most admired, including his Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, who serves as a producer on Poolman. He ultimately found that directing "incorporates a lot of the skill set of what you have to bring to bear as an actor, which is your unfettered imagination, which only becomes fettered once you work with a director and he or she has their own ideas about it," he explains. "So, I allowed my imagination to run rampant."

Below, Pine shares with A.frame five films that shaped him as an actor and — now — filmmaker.