James McAvoy has trouble seeing himself as a classic leading man. Fortunately for the scruffy Glaswegian, though, movie studio executives, critics and filmmakers disagree.

LONDON -- James Mc-Avoy may be the only one who doubts his own pending stardom.

So you can probably just ignore the scruffy, Glasgow-born star of Atonement when he insists, "I don't think I'm particularly suited to play classic leading men. Even up until now when I've played a lead, it's been more a character part. In this particular film, I think I'm suited to this character. But I don't think I'll be playing too many classic leading men in the future, simply because I don't think it would work."

Not that anyone -- studios, critics, filmmakers pears to agree. The 28-year-old is already being touted as a likely Oscar nominee for Atonement, in which he and Keira Knightley star as besieged lovers, and he's recently wrapped an action thriller opposite Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

In Atonement, based on Ian McEwan's 2001 best-seller, he plays Robbie Turner, the son of a family housekeeper smitten with their snobbish, eldest daughter (Knightley) in 1930s England.

When he's wrongly accused of a crime, he's sent to jail and then to the harrowing battlefields of the Second World War. All the while, he pines to return to Knightley, the one person who believes in his innocence.

The film opens tomorrow across Canada.

Robbie is the brand of character -- salted by working-class roots, sweetened by vulnerability -- that big, sweeping Oscar-bait epics typically revolve around. Even McAvoy admits he thought his character was "a little too unrealistic ... He's a bit too good, too angelic. He's Christ-like."

Yet despite these reservations, he also recognized, "You need a character like this in this film because everyone else is a little bit flawed.

"And it's a tragedy, so where's the tragedy if you destroy bad people or flawed people? So I think if you're going to have a tragedy, you need a good person to destroy."

Says director Joe Wright, "McEwan describes Robbie as having 'eyes of optimism.' And it was with that sentence that James came into my mind ... and I felt that was an important point in the story because obviously that optimism is crushed ... James is someone I've wanted to work with and admired for seven, eight years. He's one of the best actors of his generation working in this country."

On this side of the Atlantic, McAvoy, who lives in north London with his wife, actress Anne-Marie Duff, is probably best recognized for roles in The Last King of Scotland and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

But Atonement is likely to change that -- as will his next film, Wanted.

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, it casts McAvoy as an everyman recruited by Jolie's super-powered assassin. It's due in theatres in the spring.

"I did it to satisfy the 16-year-old boy in me and he was satisfied after two weeks. The rest of the time I was just sore and in pain and in a lot of distress," McAvoy says.

"All the effects and all the stunts and stuff were great fun and it was nice because I got to play normal person apathetic, clinically depressed, and that's a great place to start a hero's journey."

Spoken like a not-so-classic leading man.

Oscar's chance to atone

If the Academy nominates James McAvoy for an Oscar next year, it may atone for its sin of ignoring him in The Last King of Scotland.

McAvoy's work was overshadowed by the thunderous praise -- and best actor Oscar -- Forest Whitaker received for his blistering portrayal of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

McAvoy, conversely, had the relatively thankless role of Amin's personal physician.

"His existence is to allow you to see Idi Amin. When I read the script, I knew where all the glory was. I knew what the amazing part was -- it's the actor's role," says McAvoy.

As for the Academy Awards, he adds, "I don't feel I was overlooked. Thing is, (Whitaker's) been doing it for 20-odd years. I'm a new guy. I know my place in the world. I get that. A lot of times people get things very quickly and I just think that's weird.

"It used to be it was quite hard to get awards and all that, and I don't know if that was a bad thing. So I think he deserved what he got."

Late last week, the Hollywood Foreign Press took a shine to McAvoy's performance in Atonement by handing him a best actor Golden Globe nomination. Is Oscar next?

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