McGregor also stars in the movie, set in late 1960s America, alongside Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning, playing a man whose family starts to fall apart when his daughter becomes politically radicalized.
“I’ve always wanted to direct for a long time and I always wanted to wait to have a story that I felt I was burning to tell,” McGregor told Reuters in an interview.
“Then I was talking to my wife about the fact that I didn’t think this one was going to happen and she said ‘you should direct that one’ (American Pastoral).”
Asked about potentially playing the next James Bond – a role that has been linked to various actors – McGregor joked: “If there are auditions for James Bond, I don’t know about them. So I am going to phone my agent immediately to find out.”
