The 2016 movie Ewan McGregor waited 20 years to make: “It was a responsibility”
Ewan McGregor waited two decades to fulfil his ambition of becoming a director, finally getting his chance in 2016 with American Pastoral, an adaptation of Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. He was originally cast only as an actor, but stepped into the director's chair after Phillip Noyce left the project shortly before filming began, encouraged by his then-wife, production designer Eve Mavrakis. The move mattered to McGregor personally, as he had long seen himself as a filmmaker as well as an actor, tracing the ambition back to comments he made in an interview shortly after Trainspotting.
McGregor described feeling immense pressure taking on the project, saying it was "a responsibility to Philip Roth, to the producer, to the cast, to everybody who had read that novel and liked that novel." The film starred McGregor alongside Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning, and he drew on rehearsal techniques learned from working with director Danny Boyle. Despite his long-held ambition, American Pastoral was met with a poor critical and commercial reception, and it remains McGregor's sole feature-directing credit to date.
- McGregor directed American Pastoral in 2016 after wanting to for 20 years
- He stepped in after original director Phillip Noyce departed
- The film flopped and remains his only directing credit
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American Pastoral is a 1997 novel by American writer Philip Roth, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It follows a family whose life is disrupted by social and political upheaval in the United States during the 1960s.
Ewan McGregor, known primarily as an actor, had wanted to direct films for many years. American Pastoral became his first feature as a director; he also starred in it, alongside Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning. Danny Boyle, who directed McGregor in Trainspotting, had influenced how he worked with actors.
Adapting a celebrated novel can bring expectations from readers as well as the people making the film. The project therefore carried personal significance for McGregor and placed him in the position of interpreting Roth’s story for the screen.