Actor reveals the self-penned Lost in London will be his first project as director, as he juggles with commitments to George Clooney and Rob Reiner

Woody Harrelson is set to make his directorial debut with a film called Lost in London, set in the UK capital, it has been revealed.

In an interview with Screen Daily to promote his new film LBJ, Harrelson said he had dropped out of the George Clooney project Suburbicon (scripted by the Coen brothers) in order to work on Reiner’s next project Shock and Awe – in which Harrelson will play a journalist who questions George W Bush’s linkage of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. He says he will then move on to Lost in London, which he is writing as well as directing.

No details appear to be forthcoming as to the content of the film other than its setting. A TV movie with the same title was aired in the US in 1985, but it is not known if Harrelson’s film has any relation to it.

LBJ, a biopic of US president Lyndon B Johnson, is also directed by Reiner, and won positive reviews when it premiered at Toronto; Harrelson’s central performance is attracting some Oscar buzz.