Ewan McGregor takes on daunting novel in his directing debut

EWAN McGregor photo by Ruben V. Nepales

LOS ANGELES—“I have worn this jacket for maybe 10 years,” admitted Ewan McGregor, newly-minted director with his adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel, “American Pastoral.” He looked sharp in Neil Barrett’s pinstriped navy jacket over a dark shirt and pants in our chat during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

“American Pastoral” is an ambitious material for a first-time director. In the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner set in the 1960s, adjudged by Time as one of the “All-Time 100 Greatest Novels,” Roth introduced us to Seymour “Swede” Levov (played by Ewan), a successful Jewish-American businessman and former high school jock who married an ex-beauty queen (Jennifer Connelly). Their middle-class life is upended when their daughter (Dakota Fanning) commits a terrorist act, then disappears.

“The film was brought to me,” Ewan began as he narrated how he came to direct a Philip Roth novel for his directing debut. “I was attached to the film maybe three years before we shot it, maybe more. I read the script and really liked it. I didn’t have a director attached at the time. Lakeshore went out to find different directors. We never managed to do it.

“It was supposed to be shot in 2014, but that didn’t happen. Then, our plan was to shoot the film in March 2015. I was on Broadway doing ‘The Real Thing’ in the winter of 2014. I got a phone call from my agent saying that ‘American Pastoral’ wasn’t going to happen in March, because we didn’t have a director locked in.

“At that point, I felt like the film wouldn’t happen. I had been attached to movies where they come and go, and you just let them go. This one,  I couldn’t let go of the idea of the film not happening. It bothered me so much that I just wouldn’t get to play Swede and be in that story.

“I decided that maybe I should do it (direct).  I have been wanting to direct for a long time.   I didn’t want to do it so I could say that I directed something. Or put in my CV that I am an actor/director, like put it on my card.  I wanted to do it for the story.”

Roth has seen the film and reportedly likes it. Ewan smiled as he shared how he learned about Roth’s reaction: “Tom Rosenberg (producer) called me. I was in the middle of an interview.  I forgot to call Tom back.

“I saw later that he called me again. I was in another interview and I hung up.  I saw his text, ‘Call me as soon as you can.’ I started feeling like I was in trouble (laughs), that I had said something wrong.

“He read me an e-mail from Philip Roth.  It was very succinct and positive about our film, that he had liked it very much. He thought the reductions that had been made from the novel to the script were good.

“But if I had heard that he didn’t like it, I would have thought that I had failed in some way.  Because I spent so long with his book. I wanted very much for the film to represent his thoughts in the book.  So, when I heard that he liked it,  I was elated.”

As we write this, Ewan has not met one of America’s greatest novelists. “I didn’t meet him beforehand,” said Ewan, whose acting credits include “Trainspotting,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace.”

Directing tips

The 45-year-old laughed when he was asked if he got directing tips from people. “I got advice from everybody,” he replied. “Suddenly, f***ing everyone is a director when you’re directing a movie. They say, ‘You should do this, don’t do that.’ It became baffling.

“But I did approach directors I like and respect. I spoke to Mike Mills at great length, because   I loved making ‘Beginners’ with him.  And I like the way he goes about it. I also spoke to Danny Boyle. Everyone was good with advice.

“I got one of the technical pieces of advice from Ben Affleck who I know a little bit. He gave me advice about coverage, making sure that you cover yourself.  He said the last thing you give your attention to are your own scenes.

“But you don’t want to find yourself in the edit room without footage of you.  He also said that it’s embarrassing to take more time to shoot another close-up of yourself. Maybe they (other actors) have only had two takes, and you are giving yourself five.

“Melissa Kent, our editor, and I made sure that we had chosen different shots of me and a couple of close-ups. It just brought Swede a little more into focus. So that was very good advice from Ben.”

“I can tell you that we shot it already,” Ewan happily reported about the sequel to “Trainspotting,” considered one of the best films of the last 25 years. In the much-awaited “T2: Trainspotting,” Ewan is back as Renton.

“We started shooting the film at the end of May through June and July, until the end of August in Scotland. We shot in Edinburgh mainly. It was a brilliant, extraordinary experience.”

“It was great to be back on set with Danny (Boyle),” Ewan pointed out. “I have missed working with him a lot. I regret all of the years we didn’t work together.  I loved working with Danny when I was younger, and I loved working with him this summer.”

On reprising the articulate delinquent, Mark “Rent Boy” Renton, Ewan admitted, “It was daunting to play the character again. I was trepidatious approaching it because I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get there.  This is a character I created and who was written by Irvine Welsh and John Hodge back in the ’90s. I was worried that I might not pull him off anymore.

“I feel like a very different person than I was in my 20s. I was going to have to be Renton again. But of course, I immediately realized and remembered while I was playing him that he is different too, and he is 20 years older. It felt so good to play him again. It was like meeting an old friend again.

“And playing with Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan Bremmer and Bobby Carlyle and being in scenes with (their characters) Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud again was really thrilling. The film is coming out in January in Britain.”

Asked if any of his four daughters with his wife, production designer Eve Mavrakis (one daughter, Jamyan, from Mongolia, was adopted by the couple) appear to be following in his footsteps, Ewan exclaimed, “Yes, oh yes! Oh, I have an actor or two in my children.”

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