Jake Gyllenhaal "hopes to have a bigger" family one day.

The 41-year-old actor voices patriarch Seacher Clade in new animated movie 'Strange World', and he suggested he would like kids of his own one day because the impact his relatives, both younger and older, have had on his own life.

Asked if fatherhood is on the cards for him, Jake told 'Entertainment Tonight': "For me, what I relate to - yes, my relationship with my own father, but also the generation before me right now, my nieces and how incredible they are and how they've changed my life already

"My oldest is 16, my oldest niece, and over the 16 years she's been here on this Earth, she's done a lot to change me and show me, so, I love my family and I hope to have a bigger one."

Jake loves being an uncle to his sister Maggie's children, Ramona, 16, and 10-year-old Gloria, and their bond has inspired his upcoming children's book, 'The Secret Society of Aunts and Uncles', which will be released next year.

He said: "I wrote a children's book called 'The Secret Society of Aunts and Uncles'.

"Because I would always read books to my nieces when they were kids, and I never had a real book that was about that relationship, which is a really special one and very unique, and so, I decided with my best friend to write a children's book about it."

'Strange World' sees the Clade clan forced to work through their differences to complete a vital mission and Jake admitted playing the role made him examine his own family dynamics.

He said: "That's what moved me so much about it when I heard the pitch for the first time, it just hit straight home - all the complications we have in communicating to the different generations of our family.

"And ultimately, the thing that I love about this film, is that the youngest generation is the one that helps bridge the gap between all of them, and the idea that it's family first, it starts in your family, and how you treat each other in your family is ultimately how you go out into the world and treat the world, and if we can all resolve some of those things, I think the world would be a different place.

"It is a strange world, but we all have an opportunity to change it."