Scottish actor Ewan McGregor admitted to being “very nervous” about making his directorial debut with the movie adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “American Pastoral”.
The film, which premiered Friday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, also sees McGregor in the lead role of the hard-working man in late 1960s America whose family begins to fall apart after his daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) becomes politically radicalised.
McGregor, 45, said he had spent years waiting for the right directorial opportunity to emerge but felt pressure in interpreting Roth’s work on the big screen.
“I was very nervous,” said the star of “Trainspotting” at a news conference on Saturday.
“I think it’s a massive responsibility to take on – a responsibility to the producers, a responsibility to Philip Roth, a responsibility to everybody who had read that novel and who liked that novel,” he added.
He also wanted to make sure the film “represented me in some way.”
McGregor said Roth has seen the film and reacted positively to the adaptation of his 1997 masterwork, voted one of Time magazine’s 100 greatest novels.
“It was very important to me that Philip liked the book,” he said. (Reuters)