James McAvoy Interview

Great interview in The Times. Here's just one excerpt:

But still, being a hero has its perks. And this is McAvoy’s other confession. Yes, in the line of duty, he has had to kiss Angelina Jolie.

“It’s the only physical contact we have in the entire film other than when she beats me up – which she does a lot.”

Puckering up with the most famous lips in Hollywood was, he insists with a hint of a sigh, “Just another day, and the same old shit as usual. ‘Oh God, I hope she doesn’t think I’m getting off on this and I hope she doesn’t think I’m trying to… whatever.’ And she’s doing the same. So it’s always weird. Always strange, never nice.”

And here's something I hadn't heard before about his family:

James McAvoy was raised in one of Glasgow’s nominally rougher housing estates. After his parents (mum a psychiatric nurse, dad a roofer) split when he was seven, McAvoy and his sister went to live with their grandparents. For all the seeming unusualness of this domestic situation, he’s told me of the stable and loving environment provided by his hard-working grandparents. They kept him on a tight leash until he was 15, at which point, after hearing a talk by actor-director David Hayman at his school, he began to explore the idea of being an actor. Bit parts in Hayman’s The Near Room, First World War drama Regeneration and (on his first trip to London) The Bill led to a place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 2000 he moved to London and pretty much hasn’t stopped working since.

He remains close to his grandparents and his mum, often lauding them for their support. But his background has offered negative lessons too: after he received the Rising Star Award at the 2006 Baftas, his estranged dad popped up in the papers, selling his story and – much to McAvoy’s revulsion – photos of the actor as a boy. McAvoy hadn’t spoken to him in some 12 years. “I can’t really be bothered with it,” he said afterwards of his dad’s tabloid-mediated offer of an olive branch. “If I was less secure in myself, I might be more interested. But I know what made me, I know why I am the way I am.”

Read the rest here. It's three long pages full.