James
McAvoy born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor.
He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003,
when his feature film career began. His notable television work includes the
thriller State
of Play, science fiction miniseries Frank
Herbert's Children of Dune and the
Channel 4 BAFTA Award-winning series Shameless.
He
has performed in several West End productions and has received four
nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, and has also
done voice work for animated films including Gnomeo &
Juliet, its sequel Sherlock Gnomes, and Arthur
Christmas.
In
2003, McAvoy appeared in a lead role in Bollywood Queen, then
in another lead role as Rory in Inside I'm Dancing in 2004.
This was followed by a supporting role, as the faun Mr. Tumnus, in The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). His
performance in Kevin Macdonald's drama The Last King of Scotland (2006) garnered
him several award nominations, including the BAFTA Award for Best
Supporting Actor. The critically acclaimed romantic drama war film Atonement (2007)
earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA
nomination. He later appeared as a newly trained assassin in the action
thriller Wanted (2008).
In
2011, McAvoy portrayed Professor Charles Xavier in the superhero
film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in X-Men: Days
of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool
2 (2018), and Dark Phoenix (2019). McAvoy
starred in the crime comedy-drama film Filth (2013), for which
he won Best Actor in the British Independent Film Awards. In 2016, he
portrayed Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with 23 alternate personalities,
in M. Night Shyamalan's Split, for which he received critical
acclaim, and later reprised the role for the sequel Glass (2019).
Since 2019, he has portrayed Lord Asriel Belacqua in
the BBC/HBO fantasy series His Dark Materials.
James McAvoy Wiki/Biography
McAvoy
was born on 21 April 1979 in Glasgow, to bus-driver-turned-builder
James McAvoy Sr. and psychiatric nurse Elizabeth (née Johnstone;
died 2018). He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. His parents
separated when he was seven and divorced when he was eleven. McAvoy's
mother suffered from poor health and subsequently sent him to live with his
maternal grandparents, Mary and James Johnstone, in the
nearby Drumchapel area of Glasgow. His mother lived with them
intermittently. McAvoy has a younger sister named Joy and a younger
half-brother named Donald. McAvoy confirmed in an interview with The
Guardian that both his parents were deceased, but he had not been in
contact with his father since childhood. He attended the Catholic St
Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in the Jordanhill area of Glasgow
and briefly considered joining the priesthood. In a 2006 interview, McAvoy
said he considered becoming a priest as a child because it seemed to be a way
to explore the world via missionary work. During his education, he worked
at a local bakery.
McAvoy
applied to join the Royal Navy and had already been accepted when he
was also offered a place to study acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music
and Drama (RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). After
graduating in 2000, he moved to London.
Career
McAvoy's acting debut was at the age of 15 years in The
Near Room (1995). 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
starred in Privates on Parade in the Donmar Warehouse,
this time catching Sam Mendes' attention. 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. It is
one of the highest-rated programmed on the channel. More work came for him
when he accepted the role of an unprincipled reporter in 2003's State
of Play. The well-received 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,
the film deals with star-crossed lovers caught in the middle of clashing
cultures; 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, also
featuring Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany as leads. 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 fellow Scotsman 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, the moral hero of the BAFTA-winning Channel
4 programme.
Personal life
While
working on Shameless, McAvoy started a relationship
with Anne-Marie Duff, who played his character's love interest; they
married on 11 November 2006. They have a son together, born in
2010. On 13 May 2016, the couple jointly announced their decision to
divorce. To minimise disruption to their son's life, they initially shared
a home in North London when not working elsewhere. McAvoy
confirmed in an interview to The Guardian in February 2022
that he had secretly married his partner Lisa Liberati after years of
speculation. The couple met on the set of 2016 horror thriller Split.
Liberati was working as a personal assistant to Split director M.
Night Shyamalan at the time. The couple have one son together.
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.
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 fan of Celtic FC, 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
belittle and 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.
Awards and nominations
|
List of awards and nominations |
||||
|
Organisation |
Year |
Work(s) |
Category |
Result |
|
Alliance of Women
Film Journalists |
2007 |
Atonement |
Best Seduction (with Keira Knightley) |
Won |
|
ALOS Awards |
2018 |
Split |
Best Actor in a
Leading Role |
Won |
|
British Academy
Film Awards |
2006 |
— |
Rising Star Award |
Won |
|
2007 |
The Last King of
Scotland |
Best Actor in a
Supporting Role |
Nominated |
|
|
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor in a
Leading Role |
Nominated |
|
|
British Academy
Scotland Awards |
2007 |
Atonement |
Best Actor in Film |
Won |
|
2014 |
Filth |
Best Actor in Film |
Won |
|
|
2021 |
Together |
Best Actor in
Television |
Won |
|
|
British Comedy
Awards |
2004 |
Shameless |
Best TV Comedy
Newcomer |
Nominated |
|
British
Independent Film Awards |
2006 |
The Last King of
Scotland |
Best Performance
by an Actor |
Nominated |
|
2013 |
Filth |
Best Performance
by an Actor |
Won |
|
|
Cannes Film
Festival |
2007 |
— |
Male Revelation |
Won |
|
Central Ohio Film
Critics Association |
2018 |
Split |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
Dublin Film
Critics' Circle |
2007 |
Atonement |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
Empire Awards |
2006 |
The Chronicles of
Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe |
Best Newcomer |
Nominated |
|
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor |
Won |
|
|
2013 |
Filth |
Best Actor |
Won |
|
|
European Film
Awards |
2007 |
The Last King of
Scotland |
European Actor |
Nominated |
|
2008 |
Atonement |
European Actor |
Nominated |
|
|
Evening Standard British Film Awards |
2008 |
Atonement, Becoming Jane |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
Evening Standard Theatre Awards |
2015 |
The Ruling Class |
Best Actor |
Won |
|
2022 |
Cyrano de Bergerac |
Pending |
||
|
Fright Meter
Awards |
2017 |
Split |
Best Actor |
Won |
|
Gold Derby Awards |
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Ensemble Cast |
Nominated |
|
|
Golden Globes
Awards |
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor –
Motion Picture Drama |
Nominated |
|
IGN Award |
2011 |
X-Men: First Class |
Best Ensemble Cast |
Nominated |
|
International
Online Cinema Awards |
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
2017 |
Split |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
|
Irish Film &
Television Academy |
2008 |
Atonement |
Best International
Actor |
Nominated |
|
Kids' Choice
Awards |
2017 |
X-Men: Apocalypse |
#Squad |
Nominated |
|
Laurence Olivier
Award |
2010 |
Three Days of Rain |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
2013 |
Macbeth |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
|
2015 |
The Ruling Class |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
|
2020 |
Cyrano de Bergerac |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
|
London Critics
Circle Film Awards |
2005 |
Inside I'm Dancing |
British Actor of
the Year |
Nominated |
|
2006 |
The Chronicles of
Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe |
British Supporting
Actor of the Year |
Nominated |
|
|
2007 |
The Last King of
Scotland |
British Actor of
the Year |
Nominated |
|
|
2008 |
Atonement |
British Actor of
the Year |
Won |
|
|
2014 |
Filth, Trance, Welcome to the Punch |
British Actor of
the Year |
Won |
|
|
MTV Movie & TV
Awards |
2009 |
Wanted |
Best Kiss (with Angelina Jolie) |
Nominated |
|
2017 |
Split |
Best Actor in a
Movie |
Nominated |
|
|
National Movie
Awards |
2008 |
Wanted |
Best Performance –
Male |
Nominated |
|
North Texas Film
Critics Association |
2018 |
Split |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
OFTA Awards |
2008 |
Atonement |
Best Actor |
Nominated |
|
People's Choice
Awards |
2012 |
X-Men: First Class |
Favorite Movie
Superhero |
Nominated |
|
Phoenix Film
Critics Society |
2017 |
Split |
Best Actor in a
Leading Role |
Nominated |
|
San Diego Film
Critics Society |
2017 |
Split |
Best Male Actor |
Won |
|
Santa Barbara
International Film Festival |
2008 |
Atonement |
Virtuoso Award |
Won |
|
Satellite Awards |
2009 |
The Last Station |
Best Supporting
Actor – Motion Picture |
Nominated |
|
Scream Awards |
2011 |
X-Men: First Class |
Best Fantasy Actor |
Nominated |
|
2011 |
X-Men: First Class |
Best Superhero |
Nominated |
|
|
Seattle Film
Critics Society |
2017 |
Split |
Best Villain |
Won |
|
Teen Choice Awards |
2017 |
Split |
Choice Movie:
Villain |
Nominated |
|
Women Film Critics
Circle |
2011 |
Gnomeo &
Juliet |
Best Screen Couple (with Emily Blunt) |
Nominated |
|
Teen Choice Awards |
2019 |
Dark Phoenix |
Choice
Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie Actor |
Nominated |
|
Variety |
2008 |
The Last King of
Scotland and Wanted |
Variety Film
Award |
Won |