Being Authentic: James McAvoy on Film Acting

James McAvoy in Atonement

To try to glean truths about James McAvoy from the characters he's played would lead one down a colorful but misguided path. Is McAvoy like the ebullient working-class lad who wants to leaves his mark at college in Starter for Ten? Or the haughty lawyer in Becoming Jane? The irrepressible Irish punk with muscular dystrophy in Rory O'Shea Was Here? Could he resemble the magnificently naïve doctor lost in Africa in The Last King of Scotland or the poor aristocrat trying to keep up with his peers in Bright Young Things?

In truth, he is all and none of these people. Like the best of our actors, McAvoy disappears into the character he plays. "When he has to live in those moments where he goes into unchartered waters, he does it completely," says Forest Whitaker, McAvoy's Oscar-winning co-star from The Last King of Scotland. "He completely commits himself to those moments. The word is 'authentic.'"

The real story of James McAvoy is equally compelling, but it's not one he's played on screen yet. A Scot from a working class background brought up by his grandparents in a poor area of Glasgow, McAvoy has a rare presence of an actor, yet he did not think about acting until David Hayman, a Scottish actor and director, visited his school when he was 16 to give a talk about drama. A few months later, Hayman gave McAvoy his first role by casting him in his film, The Near Room, but McAvoy then spent two years as an apprentice baker in a supermarket before deciding to go to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Below, McAvoy talks about the craft of acting and his performance as ill-fated Robbie Turner in Atonement.

You've seldom played Scots on screen, so how important is nailing the right accent for you to find the character?

It's very important. A part of my job to play the character properly, I suppose, is to get the accent right. I don't spend a ridiculous length of time on it because I think you can get a little bit carried away. I just trust that any kind of natural ability that I've got is going to take me through it. If people start telling me one day that I'm not doing [an accent] very well, then I'll go back and do lots and lots of work. But I seem to be able to do enough work to be able to make [an accent] work and not take over everything I do. Sometimes, I think, the worst-case scenario is that yes, it sounds perfect, but it also sounds like you're doing an accent. Hopefully when I do an accent, it's still my voice. Sometimes when people do an accent they lose their voice, which is a shame because your voice really is a way of communicating.

Was there a moment in the script or novel of Atonement that particularly helped you understand Robbie?

Yeah, the scene in the tearoom where [Cecilia and Robbie] see each other for the first time in six years. That scene really is, for me, what made the whole script sing.I love those two characters, I think they're incredible people and I think what we do to them, what we deal out to them, is disgusting and yet utterly compelling, harrowing and uplifting to watch.

On the beach in Atonement

Was the role an emotionally grueling one to play?

Yes. Even when we weren't doing lots of big dramatic bits, the amount that the characters are keeping in and the amount of material that they're storing and not saying to each other is huge, so it was always exhausting, and it became more so as the film progressed.

You've said you need to feel challenged when you're acting. What were the most daunting aspects of playing Robbie?

Playing such a straight guy, I think. He's probably the straightest lead role I've ever had. He's a classic leading man figure, and I've never really played anything like that. I found it quite challenging seeing myself that way, and I also found it challenging playing someone who was so completely straight and good, as he certainly for the first half of the film. He's somebody that I aspire to be like: I try and be that good, I try and be open, I try and be honest, I try and not have a chip on my shoulder. I try and be the perfect human being like he is. But I don't think any of us ever succeed, really. He becomes somebody much different from that in the second half — very tainted, suicidal, upset and damaged — and, strangely, he became easier for me to play then.

You're a highly skilled fencer and have called yourself quite a physical actor. How did your physicality manifest itself in playing Robbie?

Somebody said to me about [Rory O'Shea Was Here], where I played somebody with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, "You never move.That must have been terribly hard for you." But not moving is an action as well. Not moving gives you your physicality. And likewise in this film, the physicality was much more still, it was more staid and tight — there was more tension in it. I loved that, actually. You don't see the tension, but it's there. I tried to keep my shoulders back and basically expose [Robbie's] heart for the whole first half of the film because I feel that he's so completely open as a person he's left vulnerable to attack. That's partly why he gets destroyed, you know? And then in the second half of the film, when his worldview is tainted and he's not empathetic to everybody around him anymore and he's basically become much more selfish person, I wanted to protect his heart, and I brought his shoulders in and just collapsed round a little bit. And then I tried to lose weight for the second half of the film. I didn't have much time, only three weeks, but I lost a little bit of weight and just made him look a bit shittier, you know?

Photo: Courtesy Film Four & DNA Films

McAvoy with Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland

You read a lot of scripts, so what is it that you need in order to choose to take a part in a film?

A challenge. Something that I haven't really done before. That might change one day and I'll go back over old ground, but so far I don't really feel like I've had to do that. I think what you're looking for in a script changes a lot as well from script to script and [at] different points in your career. There was a time in my career where what I was just looking for was an offer of employment, you know? I didn't really care what it was, and to a certain extent it hasn't been that long since that time. It's only been a year and a half, or something like that. I had to audition for Atonement and screen test for it twice, and the same with Wanted and The Last King of Scotland. Every film over the last two years I've done apart from Becoming Jane, I've had to audition for. So in one way, yes, I need to find something in a script, but after that it's whether they give me the job or not. And that's kind of changed a little bit now, but not completely. I'm still auditioning sometimes.

Was there an epiphany that made you realize you wanted to act?

I got given a part in a film when I was 16, out of the blue, and that was the first time that I thought about it. And I didn't really decide until I was 23 that I was definitely going to stick with it, and I wasn't sure that I was going to succeed. Which is fine, because I don't think that any actor knows that they're going to succeed. I was a little bit worried that one day I was going to get found out, but round about the age of 23, 24 I started to go, "Oh, fuck it! This is really good, just enjoy it!"

Are you someone who draws more on their own experiences to bring a character to life, or are you someone who does a lot of research and goes the Method route?

I don't use the Method. I can't say I've ever used the Method. I've used little elements of it, but I've had a classical training and in that classical training I was exposed to a lot of techniques and styles of acting. I use whatever I need, and I use whatever I can find. I don't believe that you should just bring your technique to whatever part you're playing; you should become the type of actor that that part needs. Your technique should change for every part. No way can one technique work for every part.

You made your name in the UK with shows like Shameless and State of Play. Is there a difference between TV acting and film acting?

You have a bit more time on film, but I think that's about it. There's never enough money — no matter how much money you've got — on either TV or films, so that's quite similar. It's always high-pressured, there's always people being a pain in the arse and people being absolute fuckin' heroes. The experience and the camaraderie and what I really enjoy about the day doesn't change.

So there's no stylistic differences between TV and film acting?

As an actor? No, I don't think so. You just have a bit more time, really, mate. And sometimes you have to remember, "My face is going to be 500 feet tall and I'm in a big old close-up, maybe I won't throw my head around a lot..." But other than that, I think good acting's good acting. And I'd be scared to say that I ever did "movie acting," just because it sounds like you were acting by numbers. You get people who say, "Do less on film, don't move a muscle, don't blink," and all that, and it's just fuckin' rubbish. I look at actors sometimes and see them not blinking, and it makes me go, "Fucking hell, they're not acting, they're just not blinking." There's a difference.

Photo: Courtesy Miramax Films

Becoming Jane

Which actors have you particularly enjoyed working with? And which actors most inspired you when you were younger?

Michael J. Fox inspired me when I was really young. Not to be an actor, just because I really loved pretty much everything he ever did. But that was before I even thought about being an actor. The late Ian Richardson, who was just exceptional, I thought. I had the very great honor and pleasure of working with him on one of his last films before he died, which was Becoming Jane, in which he played my uncle. Oh, there's loads, mate. Julie Walters. Forest Whitaker, who was incredible in The Last King of Scotland — that was a real experience. Bill Nighy in State of Play. My wife [Anne-Marie Duff], weirdly, in Shameless. She's an actor that inspires every time I see her work, and working with her was quite worrying because you realize you have such an unattainable bar to reach. So there's loads of actors, hundreds of actors — and I steal from them all.

Well, that's what they're there for!

Yeah, totally.

You seem to have a real love of acting as an art form. As an actor, is there some emotional release or epiphany that makes you know if a performance if right?

I don't think it's the emotional release that makes you think it's right. I'd be worried about that, because then I'd do a lot of crying. It would be, "Oh, my God, this is amazing, I'm crying loads!" which I think most actors go through a little period of when they're training. I don't know what it is, you just know when it's right. Acting in film and theater and television is just about communication. Art is only about communication. It's about making money in an industry, yes, but it's about communication, telling stories, or imparting emotional truth or insight into the world or whatever it is that your art is trying to do. Actors are just one way to help communicate art. I think when you know it's good it's not some emotional release or epiphany or anything like that, it's knowing that you've had a good conversation. You've made yourself clear, made yourself heard.

You've played in a number of genres including quite a few period pieces, and have just completed an action role in Wanted with Angelina Jolie. Is there a kind of genre that you feel more comfortable in? Or one that you would want to move into?

I think I've always felt comfortable doing what I'm doing (and sometimes less so), but it's not to do with the genre, it's to do with the quality of the script or the quality of the process I'm going through. I have done a fair wee bit of period stuff, but I don't necessarily just want to do period stuff. It's just been the work that I've been given. I think it's just about looking for a script that really works and, like I said, communicates itself clearly and well. That's about it really. I love comedy, but that's not really a genre, is it? There's too much to say about that.

I think you did some great comic work in the TV show, Early Doors, quite early on in your career.

I loved Early Doors, man. That was a hoot!

Photo: Courtesy Picturehouse

Starter For Ten

What characteristics about yourself help you in acting? Which personal characteristics hinder you?

I think I'm quite sensitive, and that's a great help as an actor because you pick up on things that can help you portray life in people. And I think I am good at giving the impression of confidence and making myself be confident, however I think the hindrance is that I'm not really confident, I'm just good at charging on through it, do you know what I mean? You pay for that afterwards. All the insecurities that you manage to ignore, you have to face them sometime and you get that afterwards.

A few years ago, when you were best known for playing cocky characters, I remember a lot of interviewers were very surprised you weren't hugely overconfident yourself.

Yeah, that's the way I try to be in my life. I like playing narcissists, I like playing pricks, but I don't like being around them in real life so I would hate to be one.

Maybe you could talk about things that you have learned — and were surprised to learn — in creating and/or playing any of the roles you have been cast for. How about in the role of Robbie?

I've learned so much from playing the characters that I've played: the countries I've been to, the people I've met, the things that this job has exposed me to. I'm so grateful for it. One of the things about Robbie is that he's incredibly open, open to the point that it kills him, I think, and that's something that I've tried to be in my life. One actor, Simon McBurney, said to me once that his life's ambition was to be open. I thought, "What an incredible ambition!" I don't think that I've stolen it as my ambition, but it's something that I've tried to be most of my life. In the film, I think I learned that it can hurt you, you can leave yourself really vulnerable, but it's still a noble pursuit.

Looking ahead, what goals do you have as an actor? Five years from now, where would you like to be and what would you like to have achieved?

I'd like to direct something one day, hopefully soon. But in terms of the type of work, I don't have a plan. I've never had a plan. If I had one, I'd be worried. [laughs] Hopefully just doing really good work. I'd love to do a bit of stage before too long, because I'm missing it. It's been two-and-a-half years, and that's kinda gutting to me.

Finally, if you couldn't act tomorrow, what would you want to do?

I'd be in a mountain rescue team.