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James McAvoy — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Early work

When McAvoy was 15, his English teacher's next door neighbour David Hayman visited his school to give a talk about Macbeth. Recognizing Hayman from his film roles, McAvoy expressed interest in getting a job on Hayman's next project for work experience purposes. Six months later, Hayman summoned McAvoy and asked him to read the script and audition for The Near Room (1995) in which he made his acting debut. He later admitted that he was not very interested in acting when joining the film, but was inspired to study acting after developing feelings for his co-star, Alana Brady. He continued to act while still a member of PACE Youth Theatre. McAvoy graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2000. Throughout the early 2000s, he made guest appearances in television shows and began working in film. In 2001, McAvoy's performance as a gay hustler in the play Out in the Open impressed director Joe Wright so much that Wright began offering McAvoy parts in his films. McAvoy kept declining them, however, and it was not until six years later that the two worked together.

He appeared in Privates on Parade in the Donmar Warehouse, where he was noticed by Sam Mendes. In 2001, the actor appeared as Private James W. Miller in Band of Brothers, an eleven-hour World War II miniseries by executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. He gained the attention of critics in 2002's White Teeth, a four-part television drama miniseries adaption based on the novel of the same name by Zadie Smith. In 2022, McAvoy commented that Smith "didn't say [he] was bad at playing the part". She told him he "was the wrong casting, because [he] was too little – the character should have been more overweight."

In 2003, McAvoy appeared in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, adapted from Frank Herbert's novels. He then accepted the role of an unprincipled reporter in 2003's State of Play. The six-part drama serial tells the story of a newspaper's investigation into the death of a young woman and was broadcast on BBC One. Calling the programme a "must-see", the Chicago Tribune recommended State of Play for its cast's performance. In 2002, McAvoy shot scenes for Bollywood Queen, described as West Side Story meets Romeo and Juliet with bindis, it was shown as a special presentation at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and opened in UK cinemas on 17 October.

In 2004, he acted in the romantic comedy Wimbledon. His next project was voicing a character named Hal in the 2004 English version of Strings, a mythic fantasy film. Another 2004 release for him was Inside I'm Dancing, an Irish production directed by Damien O'Donnell starring alongside Steven Robertson. In it, he was cast as one of the two principal characters: a maverick with duchenne muscular dystrophy. McAvoy ended 2004 by appearing in the first two series of Shameless as Steve McBride.

2000s

In 2005, he appeared in Walt Disney Pictures's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, made by Andrew Adamson and based on C. S. Lewis's children's novel. He appeared as Tumnus, a faun who befriends Lucy Pevensie (played by Georgie Henley) and joins Aslan (Liam Neeson)'s forces. It was given a UK release of 9 December. At the UK box office, the film opened at number one, earning around £8.7 million at 498 cinemas over the weekend. Worldwide, Narnia grossed £463 million. As part of the BBC Drama ShakespeaRe-Told series of four updated plays in November 2005, he took the title role 'Joe Macbeth' - the chef of a Michelin-star restaurant.

In 2006 he accepted the role of Brian Jackson, a nerdy university student who wins a place on a University Challenge quiz team in the mid-1980s, in Starter for 10. He was directed by David Nicholls, who adapted the film's screenplay from his own book. The British-American production was given distribution in the UK on 10 November. In spite of the positive buzz, the film flopped at the box office, unable to recover its production costs of £5.7 million.

Forest Whitaker had suggested McAvoy to director Kevin Macdonald for the role of Nicholas Garrigan in 2006's low-budgeted The Last King of Scotland. McAvoy portrayed a Scottish doctor who becomes the personal physician to dictator Idi Amin (played by Whitaker) while in Uganda. While the film is based on factual events of Amin's rule, the details of the story and the character McAvoy played are fictional and adapted from Giles Foden's 1998 novel. McAvoy assessed his character to be a "completely selfish prick". McAvoy was named Best Actor of the year by Scotland's own BAFTA Awards, where the film swept the major categories, and received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The film received three awards, including the Outstanding British Film of the Year.

Following that, he played Irish attorney Tom Lefroy and love-interest to Jane Austen in Becoming Jane, a 2007 historical film inspired by the author's early life. Next up was Penelope, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Also starring Christina Ricci, it generated polarised reviews. The breakthrough role in McAvoy's career came in Atonement, Joe Wright's 2007 adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of the same title. A romantic war film, it focuses on lovers Cecilia and Robbie's (Keira Knightley and McAvoy) lives being torn apart after her jealous younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) falsely accuses him of rape. Upon reading the script, McAvoy said he thought "If I don't get the part I'm not reading the book because it'll be devastating. It's an amazing role and I really wanted it." McAvoy has called the film "incredibly sad" but considers it an uplifting experience. He also shared that he hoped viewers will be left "absolutely devastated and harrowed". Screenings of Atonement were held at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was one of the most acclaimed films present, and Venice Film Festival. Atonement was a big awards contender; it was nominated for fourteen BAFTAs and seven Academy Awards. Both McAvoy and Knightley were nominated for their performances at the 65th Golden Globe Awards, respectively. The Hollywood Reporter writer Ray Bennett said the duo gave "compelling and charismatic performances". In December 2022, McAvoy stated that McEwan was not entirely satisfied with his casting as Robbie in Atonement. "He wasn't disparaging. He just gave me… nothing. And I was a bit devastated. Then he said I was a bit small – because my character, Robbie, was meant to be this 6ft tanned Adonis, and I was a 25-year-old pasty Glaswegian who's 5ft-nothing."

His next role saw McAvoy appear with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman in Wanted (2008), an action film where he portrayed Wesley Gibson, a young American slacker who learns he is heir to a legacy of assassins. When McAvoy screen-tested for the role, he was initially rejected because the studio was seeking an actor with conventional Hollywood leading-man looks and physique. He later recalled being considered the "runt of the litter" of those who tested, but ultimately got the role in late 2006 since the studio "wanted someone geeky". While shooting action scenes for Wanted, he suffered several injuries, including a twisted ankle and an injured knee. Nonetheless, the actor said he had a "good time" whilst making the film. McAvoy had not previously done this type of genre, and thought of Wanted as a chance to be more versatile.

Loosely based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar, it saw a June 2008 release worldwide. It received favourable reviews from the press, who generally liked that it was fast-paced. At the box office, Wanted was a success, grossing $341 million against a $75 million production budget. Next was The Last Station (2009), a biopic that details the final months of celebrated writer Leo Tolstoy and also stars Anne-Marie Duff, McAvoy's wife at the time. It was shown at a limited number of screens in the US. Although most critics' awards paid attention to co-stars Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer, the Satellite Awards nominated McAvoy for Best Supporting Actor. In 2009, McAvoy voiced Angelina's father, Maurice Mouseling, in the television series, Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps. He also appeared onstage in 2009 at Apollo Theatre's Three Days of Rain.

2010s

He voiced the male titular character in the film Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), an animated movie based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. In Robert Redford's historical American drama The Conspirator, McAvoy played the role of an idealistic war hero who reluctantly defends co-conspirator Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) charged in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. It premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. While this movie garnered mixed reception, critics lauded the actor for his work. In Owen Gleiberman's assessment of The Conspirator, he found it "stiff-jointed" and tedious, but regarded McAvoy as "an avid presence".

In mid-2010, McAvoy was cast as telepathic superhero Professor X, leader and founder of the X-Men, in X-Men: First Class. He joined an ensemble that included Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult. Based on the Marvel Comics and a prequel to the film series, it focuses on the relationship between Professor X and Magneto and the origin of their groups. McAvoy did not read comics as a child, but was a fan of the X-Men animated cartoon series. Released to the UK on 1 June, First Class topped its box office with ticket sales of around £5 million in its opening weekend. First Class was reviewed favourably and McAvoy's performance was widely praised. In 2011, he began filming the role of Max Lewinsky in the British thriller Welcome to the Punch. That same year, McAvoy voiced the title character in the animated holiday film Arthur Christmas. He also played the lead role in the Danny Boyle film Trance.

In 2012, McAvoy was cast as Bruce Robertson in Filth, an adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name. The film's ensemble cast includes McAvoy's former classmate Shauna Macdonald as his wife, as well as Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan and Imogen Poots. For his role, McAvoy won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards in December 2013. It was also announced that he would co-star with Jessica Chastain in a double-feature film project, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. He performed the male lead in radio play adaptation of Neverwhere written by Neil Gaiman. In October 2016, McAvoy played the character Richard in the BBC Radio 4 production of Neil Gaiman's short story 'How The Marquis Got His Coat Back'.

McAvoy starred in Shakespeare's Macbeth on London's West End in early 2013. Macbeth was the first performance at the Trafalgar Transformed, running from 9 February until 27 April. The production was directed by Jamie Lloyd who also directed McAvoy in his last stint on the stage in 2009's Three Days of Rain. In 2015, McAvoy won the Best Actor award at London's Evening Standard Theater Awards for his portrayal of Jack Gurney in The Ruling Class, a revival of the Peter Barnes play directed by Jamie Lloyd. It ran at Trafalgar Studios from 16 January to 11 April 2015.

McAvoy reprised his role as Professor X in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which grossed $747.9 million worldwide, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of the year 2014 and the second highest-grossing film in the X-Men franchise and in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse. In 2016, he starred in the M. Night Shyamalan thriller Split as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a dissociative identity disorder sufferer with dangerous capabilities. In 2018, McAvoy voiced Hazel in the BBC miniseries Watership Down. In 2019, he reprised his role as Crumb in Glass and then returned as Professor X in the film Dark Phoenix. McAvoy played the adult Bill Denbrough in the horror film It Chapter Two, the sequel to It (2017), which premiered on 6 September 2019 and grossed $473 million at the box office. Also in 2019, McAvoy starred as Lord Asriel in the television adaptation of His Dark Materials.

Personal life

While working on Shameless, McAvoy began dating co-star Anne-Marie Duff, who played his character's love interest. They married on 11 November 2006, and their son was born in 2010. McAvoy and Duff announced their decision to divorce in May 2016, and to minimise disruption to their son's life, they initially shared a home in north London when not working elsewhere. McAvoy later began a relationship with Lisa Liberati, whom he had met on the set of Split (2016), where she worked as a personal assistant to director M. Night Shyamalan. In early 2022, he confirmed they had privately married after years of speculation. The couple have a son born in 2022 and live in Crouch End.

After McAvoy won the "Rising Star" award from the BAFTAs, his estranged father spoke to the Sunday Mirror, stating that he would love to get in touch with his son but did not know how to contact him. Although he did not read the piece, McAvoy heard about it and was unmoved.

For Split (2016) and Glass (2019), McAvoy transformed his physique by gaining significant muscle mass (around 16-20 lbs) in months, to embody "The Beast". McAvoy stands at a height of 5 ft 7 in.

McAvoy considers himself a spiritual person who no longer practises Catholicism. He enjoys fantasy themes, which he said started from age 11 with reading The Lord of the Rings.

McAvoy is a supporter of Scottish Premiership club Celtic, stating that his dream acting role would be Celtic player Jimmy Johnstone. He had once been a video game addict, playing role-playing games such as The Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which he quit after it began affecting his life. McAvoy recalled burning his disc of Oblivion with a kitchen stove to get rid of his addiction to the game.

Speaking to Sky News in 2011, McAvoy said he believed that British filmmakers belittlingly attempt to dumb down their productions to please American audiences. He had previously called 3D films a "waste of money", accusing film studios of using the effect to get more money out of cinema audiences.

In September 2025, McAvoy was punched by a man at a bar in Toronto, Ontario. The man drank too much and was getting escorted out of the bar. McAvoy was in the city for the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of his film California Schemin', at the time. He stayed at the bar after the incident.