James McAvoy

Birth Name: James McAvoy

Nickname/Stage Name: James McAvoy

Birth Date: April 21, 1979

Genres: Action, Drama

Occupation: Actor

Years Active: 1995 till Present

Net Worth: $20 million

 

Personal life 

James McAvoy was born in Glasgow, Scotland, His parents divorced when he was 11. Due to his mother's poor health, he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in Glasgow's Drumchapel neighborhood.

He began dating Anne-Marie Duff and the couple married on November 11, 2006. Brendan, their son, is their only child (born 2010). The couple announced their divorce on May 13, 2016, in a joint statement.

McAvoy is dating Lisa Liberati. The two have been linked since 2017, and the actor revealed that they spent lockdown together.

Education

He went to the Catholic St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Glasgow's Jordanhill neighborhood. He had already been accepted into the Royal Navy when he was offered a position to study acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), which is now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

He graduated from RSAMD in 2000.

Career

McAvoy made his acting debut when he was 15 years old in The Near Room (1995). He later admitted that when he first joined the project, he had little interest in acting, but was encouraged to pursue it after falling in love with his co-star, Alana Brady.

He had a starring role in Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, a miniseries based on Frank Herbert's novels in 2003, and played an unethical reporter in State of Play in 2003. This led to more acting jobs.

McAvoy next appeared alongside Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman in the action film Wanted (2008). He played Wesley Gibson, a young American slacker who discovers he is the heir to an assassination legacy. When he auditioned for the part, he was initially turned down because the studio was looking for an actor with the look and physique of a typical Hollywood leading man.

He was cast as telepathic superhero Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men: First Class in mid-2010, alongside Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult. He reprised the role in the sequels.

The actor voiced the protagonist in the animated film Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) and appeared in Robert Redford's historical drama The Conspirator.

McAvoy portrayed the adult version of Bill Denbrough in the horror movie It Chapter Two. 

Awards

British Academy Film Award (2006)

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award (2007)

British Academy Scotland Award (2007, 2014)

Cannes Film Festival Award (2007)

London Critics Circle Film Award (2008, 2014)

Santa Barbara International Film Festival Award (2008)

Variety Club of Great Britain Award (2008)

Empire Award (2008, 2013)

B Evening Standard Theatre Award (2015)

British Independent Film Award (2013)

Fright Meter Award (2017)

San Diego Film Critics Society Award (2017)

Seattle Film Critics Society Award (2017)

ALOS Award (2018)

Quotes

"We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't."

"Where it gets difficult is when you get two or three jobs back to back where you're playing leads and doing 13, 14 hours a day, six days a week, and you suddenly think, hang on a minute, how can you have a life like this? Do I work to live or live to work? How can I work properly with no life to inform the work?"

"I always believed that I never wanted to be an actor. I only did it because I was allowed to do it and I had to do something."

"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."

Trivia

As a child, he wanted to become a missionary because he wanted to travel the world.

Before he went into acting, he wanted to join the Navy.

His younger sister, Joy McAvoy, is also an actress.

Is good friends with fellow actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Ellis.

Movies

The Near Room (1995)

Regeneration (1997)

Swimming Pool (2001)

Wimbledon (2004)

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Wanted (2008)

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Filth (2013)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Split (2016)

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Glass (2019)

Dark Phoenix (2019)

It Chapter Two (2019)