He already has the cameras rolling in Pittsburgh, but actor – and now director – Ewan McGregor still has room for new cast members in American Pastoral. McGregor has added Rupert Evans to the list.
McGregor took over the director’s chair after Phillip Noyce decided to pass on the film, which has a script from John Romano adapted from Philip Roth’s novel. Set during the Vietnam War years, American Pastoral follows Seymour ‘Swede’ Levov (McGregor), a once all-conquering high-school athlete, who’s married to a beauty queen (Jennifer Connelly) and runs the business he’s inherited from his dad. All seems well in Swede’s world until his daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) joins the countercultural clamour of the time, signing up as a revolutionary and committing a fatal act of violence that throws all their lives into chaos.
Uzo Aduba, Molly Parker, David Strathairn and Valorie Curry are all set to appear, and Evans will be McGregor’s younger brother. He has several films in the pipeline, including horror thriller The Boy and action pic Belly Of The Bulldog. Evans will also be seen as one of the main roles in Philip K. Dick adaptation The Man In The High Castle, which Amazon adds to its streaming video service on November 20 after the pilot proved popular with viewers.