ForgotPassword?
Sign Up
Search this Topic:
Posts: 6806
Oct 28 11 8:26 AM
Oct 28 11 11:40 AM
Oct 28 11 12:23 PM
Posts: 145
Oct 28 11 4:40 PM
Posts: 2548
Oct 28 11 5:07 PM
Posts: 1589
Oct 28 11 8:31 PM
Oct 28 11 8:36 PM
Oct 30 11 8:17 AM
Oct 30 11 8:22 AM
Oct 30 11 8:24 AM
Oct 30 11 8:31 AM
Oct 30 11 8:35 AM
Nov 4 11 5:13 PM
Posts: 206
Nov 4 11 6:01 PM
Nov 4 11 6:02 PM
Nov 4 11 7:10 PM
Nov 5 11 8:28 AM
Andrew Collins: Regrets? James McAvoy's had a few...
The star of X-Men, Narnia and Atonement believes that missing out on Pirates saved his career
Written By
Andrew Collins 11:05 AM, 05 November 2011
In a café near his north London home, over a proper cup of tea (leaves, pot, china crockery, the works – “it’s why I come here”), James McAvoy is talking about the ones that got away.
First there was The Conspirator, the Robert Redford-directed historical drama about the assassination of President Lincoln, in which he had the lead role. McAvoy screws his face up at mention of the film.
“It’s a long film. There are a lot of words. It’s a bit slow. It’s a courtroom drama, d’you know what I mean? It was a bit like Greek drama – all the action is off-screen.” It “got away” in the sense that it was barely noticed on its release in the UK during the summer.
Then there’s 50/50, in cinemas later this month, with Joseph Gordon Levitt as an ill young man with a 50 per cent chance of survival. Back when the film was titled “I’m with Cancer”, the role was McAvoy’s. But the Scottish actor bailed on the project because, it was reported, he wanted to be at home for the birth of his first child.
“It wasn’t that,” he says, frowning slightly. McAvoy and his partner, actress Anne-Marie Duff (they met while filming TV series Shameless in 2004), are known – renowned even – for their desire to keep their private lives private.
“Unexpected family stuff up the road came in, and I had to be there,” he continues – “up the road” being Scottish expat speak for events at home, in McAvoy’s case Glasgow, where he and his younger sister were raised by his grandparents after his parents split when he was seven.
“Stuff I’m no’ wanting to talk about,” he adds, his Scottish accent surprisingly strong. (I say surprising given the fact that he’s been in London a dozen years, and that – aside from The Last King of Scotland, upcoming Danny Boyle heist movie Trance and Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth – he almost never uses his own accent on screen.) “I did a week [of filming] on 50/50 – if I’d wanted to be at home for the birth of the baby, I would have not taken the film.
“There was some article that said I had to be at home for the birth of the ‘million dollar baby’, ’cause that’s what I was getting paid.” He blows a good-natured raspberry of exasperation. “Was I f***, man! I think it would have worked out that I got paid less than I got paid on Shameless. It’s hilarious what people think actors get paid.
“A lot of actors do get paid a helluva lot, don’t get me wrong. And I didn’t get paid nothing for X–Men, of course,” says this serious-minded actor, whose candour is often at odds with his desire to keep himself to himself.
In X-Men: First Class, the recent superhero “origins story” (from Friday FilmFlex), McAvoy plays a young version of Professor Xavier, as portrayed by Patrick Stewart in the previous, “later” X-Men films.
“That was more money than I thought I’d ever make in my life,” smiles the 32-year-old. “But it’s never the figures that people think. And more recently that’s become even more true, ’cause the money’s just gone out of the business.”
Money was a factor in another “coulda been a contender” moment for McAvoy. He almost landed the Orlando Bloom part in Pirates of the Caribbean. Think how different the blockbuster franchise would have been with quietly charismatic McAvoy instead of the more-vanilla Bloom. Actually, consider how Pirates would have been with one of the other final-round auditioners playing Will Turner opposite Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann.
“The producers saw me, Adam Rickitt (from Coronation Street) and Paul Nicholls (from EastEnders)”, reveals McAvoy with a hint of a raised eyebrow. “We were all in the waiting room for the auditions with Keira, and I think I got relatively close to the part…”
He’s not lying when he says he’s relieved he lost out. For one thing, “by nature of the fact that you’re in something that cost hundreds of millions, you’re just a target… Keira nearly got crippled by the fact that she was suddenly an international movie star.” He pauses and clarifies. His Atonement co-star “wasn’t nearly crippled, but people’s opinions of her were really, really harsh. She was in a film that, acting-wise, wasn’t that demanding, and she got labelled as a terrible actor. That could have been the end for her.”
There are other reasons why he’s not sorry: “My career would have been completely different. I wouldn’t have met my wife…”
“I know! Well, I wouldn’t have this son, and I don’t want any other son,” he beams. Baby Brendan is now 18 months old.
What, I wonder, is McAvoy going to tell his son when he’s of an age to watch the child-friendly films – Penelope, The Chronicles of Narnia – on dad’s CV? And more recently his two animated features, Gnomeo & Juliet and his latest, Arthur Christmas, the festive family treat from Aardman that’s in cinemas from Friday 11 November.
In Arthur Christmas, McAvoy plays the hapless scion of the Christmas clan. His father (Jim Broadbent) is the current Santa, his grandpa (Bill Nighy) the Yule-ruler of yore, his overachieving elder brother (Hugh Laurie) the heir apparent. But when the very basis of the Christmas family’s present-dispensing business is jeopardised, young Arthur must step into the breach.
All of which makes for a typically entertaining Aardman romp. But when little Brendan hears dad in this role, won’t it reveal the unpalatable truth that – whisper it – there ain’t no Santa Claus?
“He won’t know, though!” claims McAvoy, hopefully, “as my accent’s so different in Arthur. The family Christmas is quite posh. They kinda styled them as an irreverent take on the royal family. So he’s a little bit like a less clever Harry. A less sophisticated Harry – mind you, that’s saying something…” he adds under his breath. But in any case, he won’t be telling his son that he’s in the film.
“And I’ll no’ tell him about Narnia, either. I’ll just let him figure it out. If he recognises me in that, cool. But I bet he won’t even notice.”
Brendan won’t realise that’s dad playing Mr Tumnus, a fawn with horns and goat’s legs? James McAvoy is a great actor, but even he’s not that good.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-11-05/andrew-collins-regrets-james-mcavoy%27s-had-a-few
Nov 10 11 7:19 AM
James McAvoy is going cold turkey. We've snuck out the back of the café near his home in Crouch End into the deserted outdoor eating area, the better to indulge - but now the actor is denying himself. As I throw caution and health to the wind, he's hungrily eyeing me, battling his addictions.
"I'm off the bread," he reveals, "and I do feel better actually. I hit 30 and I thought, 'Wait a minute, I need to slow down a bit here…'"
That birthday milestone, plus the birth of his first son, have made the Glasgow-born star of Atonement take stock. He wasn't losing the pounds as quickly as he used to. This sweary, down-to-earth, proudly un-Hollywood A-lister won't be doing anything about his incoming white hairs and is forever asking make-up ladies to refrain from plucking his increasingly bushy eyebrows ("They're gonna be my f*****g passport to playing wizards in my Seventies!"). However, the 32-year-old does not love his girth. So, it's out with the bread.
"But, you know, I still crave. I'm looking at that roll going, 'Ooh'," he smiles, gawping at my individually baked, courgette-flecked bun - this stoutly middle-class 'hood is, after all, north London actor domicile central, so it's all posh artisan bakery products around these parts.
McAvoy, his actor wife Anne-Marie Duff and 18-month-old baby Brendan are regulars in the local Waitrose.
He's currently filming Trance with Danny Boyle. "Danny has incredible energy," he marvels of the shock-headed Slumdog Millionaire auteur and artistic director of the Olympics 2012 opening ceremony. "It's quite something to behold. He drinks a lot of coffee and he's about four feet taller when his hair's standing up. He's working on the Olympics Thursday and Friday and doing our film the rest of the time."
The schedule (a regular five-day week is family-friendly for the new dad), the locations (mostly London) and the budget (modest) suit low-key McAvoy. It's not always thus for in-demand actors.
We talk about Duff's role in the Old Vic's revival of Terence Rattigan's Cause Célèbre. His 41-year-old wife missed out on a nomination in this month's Evening Standard Theatre Awards but she was widely praised for her performance.
He admits that making X-Men: First Class, his well-received summer blockbuster comic-book prequel, was tough. "It was a really gruelling shoot. Six, seven months of indecision and not knowing what we were doing…" But was doing a play night after night even more tiring for his wife - not least because there was a baby needing Mummy?
"Definitely. I think doing plays is always knackering," he says firmly, recalling his last time on the London stage, in 2009's Three Days of Rain. "But especially when you're playing a part as emotionally taxing and dextrous as Alma in that play. And Anne-Marie was rarely off stage.
But one of the strengths of her work is that when she goes through something, she goes through it and she doesn't hold back.
"Danny said something to me the other day - we pay to see actors cry and go through stuff. Not just dramatic feats of action and derring-do but stuff that we wouldn't let ourselves do. We rarely cry or kiss our partner or devote the time and attention it takes to understand some of the things we're going through.
"But we pay to see actors f***in' go through it," he adds forcefully.
"I think Ann-Marie's always done that, and she manages to do it without taking up too much emotional space. I don't know how she does it," he concludes with an awestruck and, you might say, lovestruck shake of the head.
Diet, baby, blockbuster movie, chat about the missus - in every sense it's a long way from the last time I met McAvoy. That was in summer 2008.
He was in Germany filming The Last Station, a low-budget film about the final days of Leo Tolstoy. Duff was also in the film, the first time they'd worked together since meeting on the set of the Channel 4 series Shameless in 2004.
That night McAvoy smoked cigarettes like they were good for you and sank a few beers. He politely but firmly batted away any questions about Duff. The couple were sticking to their "no personal questions" line. When asked how it was to be acting together again, he shot back a pursed-lipped: "Fine. We didn't have much to do with each other."
Yet three years on, McAvoy is more relaxed. He's still no red-carpet regular, ducks the celebrity hoopla wherever possible and remains a plain-speaking, media-shy purist. We've met ostensibly to discuss his lead voice role in Arthur Christmas, the hilarious new family film from Aardman Animations, but even then he's doing barely any promotion for the film, and certainly no glossy magazine interviews. But age and experience - he's worked with everyone from Angelina Jolie (on 2008 action flick Wanted) to Robert Redford (on this year's The Conspirator) - have mellowed him. And the arrival of baby Brendan has helped McAvoy recalibrate, work out what it's worth getting stressed about.
"I've become much more practical," he says of his post-birth rejig. "And more efficient. But your world narrows, and the things you devote your new-found efficiency to are less… There are less things that you give a $**@ about.
"But the work that I do as well - and both of us do," he adds of Duff, "is so… I dunno man, the amount of time you spend doing it is unbelievable." What he is trying to say is that the McAvoy-Duffs both work in a profession that is generally anti-social and anti-family.
"We do," he nods, "we've really both got that going on. And it does make it difficult. The hours you work are incredible. But beyond that as well, Anne-Marie and I both seem to get the kind of jobs where you put yourself through the wringer. X-Men wasn't really like that - that was quite nice and chilled out. I just got to float about saying lines that Professor X thought were slightly humorous. But generally the work we get is quite emotionally demanding.
"So it is a hard thing. But," he smiles, "it's just the way it is, man. We're both quite proud of that as well. It's that thing that Danny said: you wanna see actors go through it. And I think we're both into going through it, ha ha!"
Arthur Christmas, he acknowledges, didn't demand too much: 15 voice- recording sessions over two years, some in the company of heroes and friends Bill Nighy (playing Grandfather Christmas) and Jim Broadbent (Father Christmas). He says he based his Arthur - second in line to the family Christmas throne - in part on Prince Harry. So does that mean Arthur gets hammered down a Chelsea nightclub?
"Unfortunately not," McAvoy laughs. "I think he's a more innocent Harry," he says with a twinkle, before adding: "I think I'd love Harry. He's a proper, man. He's like, 'I'm never gonna be the king, it's cool…'"
In his next film, Filth, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel, he has been asked to lose weight à la Christian Bale. 'I was like, "Aw, must I? Can't I just act it, darling?'" he laughs in his best Larry Olivier accent. "We start filming mid-January. Christmas is gonna be a f*****g nightmare, isn't it?"
Arthur Christmas opens tomorrow
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/article-24008238-i-based-my-new-film-role-on-prince-harry-says-james-mcavoy.do
Nov 12 11 12:00 PM
By Paul Byrne
Saturday November 12 2011
Having scored a surprise hit earlier this year with Gnomeo & Juliet, James McAvoy is back behind the mic for Aardman Animation's latest offering, Arthur Christmas.
"It's a pretty cool experience for an actor, doing animation," offers McAvoy. "You've got to project your character, your emotions, clearly and simply. And then you've got to allow for the fact that there's going to be a physical representation of you up there on the screen, who won't necessarily look like you. Or walk like you. Or even talk like you. If you're lucky. In a way, it's what every actor dreams of -- completely losing yourself in a role to the point where no one will recognise it's you."
McAvoy and the missus, fellow former Shameless actor Anne-Marie Duff, have a child, one-year-old Brendan: "It is a kick, thinking about how a child's mind is going to work out how their parent's voice is coming out of someone they don't recognise, at all," smiles McAvoy. "You want to keep that wonder there as long as you can, and doing these animated films is certainly one way to sprinkle some magic into my child's life. And a little confusion too, of course . . ."
grace
According to one ratings board, Arthur Christmas contains 'some mild rude humour', which has become the one saving grace of a Christmas film these days. It certainly worked for Elf.
"There is a comparison to be made to Elf, indeed," nods McAvoy. "A dose of humour is pretty effective when it comes to countering all the usual seasonal trimmings. This is Aardman though, so . . . as John Lasseter always says, it's all about the story. Whether it's shot in digital animation or with your kid's crayons, if the story works, the audience will follow."
We'll be seeing plenty of McAvoy over the coming months, acting alongside Mark Strong and Peter Mullan in Evan Creevy's crime drama Welcome To The Punch, alongside Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson in Danny Boyle's Trance (currently filming), and early next year, there's Jon S Baird's adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel Filth, which will co-star Jamie Bell and Alan Cumming. There's also talk of the sequel to the Angelina Jolie-led, 2008 hit Wanted.
"Yeah, I've heard talk about that one too," smiles McAvoy. I like mixing it up. Keeps me interested, and, hopefully, that comes across in my work . . ." >Paul Byrne
Arthur Christmas is in cinemas
- Paul Byrne
http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/film-cinema/mcavoy-pulls-a-cracker-in-a-festive-role-2933096.html
Nov 12 11 12:16 PM