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Having proved he can do the heavy lifting in such films as Atonement and The Last King of Scotland, James Mc-Avoy now gets to show his comedy chops in a delightful fable called Penelope.
McAvoy and Christina Ricci star in the film, which is a contemporary fairy tale about inner beauty versus external appearance. Ricci plays a girl born with a pig's nose, part of a family curse that can only be lifted by unconditional love. McAvoy is the love interest, but he's not saving anyone. In fact, his character needs a bit of saving himself.
"He's so f----d up," enthuses the Scottish actor, speaking by phone from Los Angeles. "He's far from perfect. He's a gambling addict, and that's interesting because he's not the High School Musical, perfect figure that comes along and changes her life. He's going through his own stuff, too. This film is probably going to appeal to young girls, so to have a character like that -- it's not patronizing to children."
As for working opposite that snout nose Ricci had to wear, McAvoy says, "I think I was an okay kind of colleague, simply because I'd been through the same nasal obstruction stuff on Narnia."
McAvoy, 29, is currently at the intense level of work and popularity known as the spin cycle. When he isn't winning awards -- most recently for Atonement -- he's handing them out to other people, as at the Oscars; at the same time that he's promoting one film, preparing to promote another and getting ready to film yet another, he's walking red carpets, doing the round of talk shows and zooming to events such as the recent Wondercon comic books convention in San Francisco. McAvoy will be seen in June as a hit man opposite Angelina Jolie in Wanted, and he'll likely star in The Last Station, a film about Leo Tolstoy, with Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti.
Still, McAvoy says it has all been slow but sure from his side. What looks like an "overnight sensation" to others has been more than a decade of work for him. He went to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but got his acting start almost by accident, meeting actor David Hayman and finding a role in The Near Room in 1995. Mc-Avoy did TV, including Children of Dune, State of Play and Early Doors and such films as Wimbledon and Rory O'Shea Was Here before a British TV show called Shameless won him a huge following and a wife -- he married fellow cast member Anne-Marie Duff.
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His career really heated up about three years ago with Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Then came The Last King of Scotland, Starter For 10, Becoming Jane and Atonement.
Funny how McAvoy's co-stars, such as Forest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland and Keira Knightley in Atonement, keep winning awards.
"Oh, I don't feel hard done by," says McAvoy, mildly. "If the people around you are great, you're going to be better. Last King of Scotland and Atonement are two of the best jobs I've ever done, personally and professionally. I have been rewarded. My career got better because of them, and things like that."
McAvoy has said that his grandparents only recently stopped worrying about whether he could make a living as an actor. He says it has been about four years that he has felt he was 100% an actor.
"At the beginning, I was a little less certain about what I was going to do. Then, with each role, you wonder, 'Can I pull the wool over everybody's eyes again?' Because it's always a challenge. It's never particularly easy, and when it has been, I've not been particularly good, I don't think." He sighs. "So the process is, even if it's successful, you come out thinking, 'God, I got through that by the skin of my teeth.' And because you feel that, and because you're challenged and so you want to do better, it makes you worry about the next time, as well."
How a young Glaswegian became a thespian
Let this be a lesson to you, children: James McAvoy is an actor because he has such good manners.
As a student, the Glasgow-born McAvoy went to Catholic school and thought about being a priest or maybe a missionary (criminy!) and he also considered the British navy.
He never really thought about acting at all. When David Hayman came to speak at his school, McAvoy felt some of his classmates had not given the filmmaker a proper reception. A few of the boys were actually quite rude, so McAvoy approached Hayman afterward to apologize and to compliment him on his talk.
He then asked the director to keep him in mind if he cast another film. Four months later, Hayman called about an audition for The Near Room. The rest, as they say, is history.
Despite having Courtney Love swooning over him on her Internet blog and other weirdness he can't control, the actor seems to have his feet firmly planted on the ground. He's modest, he's grateful for his success and he continues to be enthusiastic about what he does. Of his coming action movie, Wanted, he says, "The 14 year old in me can't wait to see it."
Ian McEwan, author of the novel Atonement, noted Mc-Avoy's talent, charm and, "Brilliant lack of pretension, for someone so hot."
Though he keeps his private life as private as he can, McAvoy is known to be a skilled boxer and fencer. The son of a builder and a nurse who divorced when he was seven (he's estranged from his father), McAvoy once said of himself, "I'm 5-foot-7, and I've got pasty white skin. I don't think I'm ugly, don't get me wrong, but I'm not your classic lead man, Brad Pitt guy."
That's a matter of opinion.