Pastoral's Present

What Makes the Unraveling of the American Dream So Compelling? Ask Ewan Mcgregor.

 

- Janine di Giovanni

Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel American Pastoral is a monumental attempt to untangle loss, betrayal, and the fragile bond between parents and children. It’s also a brutal look at terrorism wrought by someone who wasn’t radicalized in some far-off land but in a bucolic, affluent American enclave. For Ewan McGregor, the 45-year-old Scottish actor who directs and stars in the new film version of the book, these contradictions are what made the project so appealing.

I have been a fan of Roth’s for most of my life. I’ve spent most of my adulthood in Europe, but I was born in pre-riot Newark, New Jersey, as was Roth, and my parents went to the same high school he did. American Pastoral’s protagonist, Seymour “the Swede” Levov, leaves that Newark to raise his family in an upscale county in a rural part of the state, close to where I spent my own youth riding horses, swimming in forgotten creeks, and hiking through dense forests. Roth’s characters—their frustrations, their memories, and their sorrows—are similar to those in my family history.

McGregor, whose roles have ranged from Obi-Wan Kenobi to Iago and who had never read this book before signing on to the film, might seem rather far from the all-American father he plays, but here he reveals that it was the similarities he found between them that drew him to the role and convinced him to step behind the camera for the first time.

JANINE DI GIOVANNI: The main character here is Swede Levov, a Jewish star athlete from Newark, growing up in the 1940s and starting a family during the postwar euphoria. I know you’re an actor, but this is so far from your own life. What was the appeal?