James McAvoy

James McAvoy (born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor.

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.

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.

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.

After graduating in 2000, he moved to London.

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 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.

His notable television work include the thriller State of Play (2003), the science fiction miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003), and the drama series Shameless (2004–2005).

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 programmes 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 2004, he acted in the romantic comedy Wimbledon, also featuring Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany as leads.

McAvoy gained recognition for playing Mr. Tumnus in the fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and Wesley Gibson in the action film Wanted (2008).

His performances in the period dramas The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Atonement (2007) gained him nominations for the BAFTA Award.

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).

On stage, McAvoy has starred in several West End productions, such as Three Days of Rain in 2010, Macbeth in 2013, The Ruling Class in 2015, and Cyrano de Bergerac in 2020, for which he received four nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.

In 2011 he voiced the title character in Arthur Christmas, and portrayed Charles Xavier in the superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in future installments of the X-Men series.

McAvoy gained praise for starring in the independent crime film Filth (2013) and as a man with 23 alternate personalities in M. Night Shyamalan's Split (2016) and Glass (2019).

He portrayed Lord Asriel in the fantasy series His Dark Materials from 2019 to 2022, and starred as Bill Denbrough in the horror film It Chapter Two (2019).