Fear of Fame
With 'Atonement,' James McAvoy Is on His Way. Gulp.

By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

NEW YORK James McAvoy needs a J-O-B. Unemployed and under pressure, the Scottish actor hasn't worked since the summer. "I have nothing in the pipeline," he says. "Nothing."

On one of McAvoy's most recent jobs, he made out with the minxy Keira Knightley. Good work if you can get it!

If.

McAvoy won't actually have a problem getting himself hired again. Especially not with so many people suddenly stringing "McAvoy" and "Oscar contender" together in sentences. Who needs references when you have Academy Award buzz? (The buzzed-about film: "Atonement," an adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel opening Friday.)

What McAvoy does need is answers. He's vexed by questions he never thought he'd consider, in a profession he wound up in almost by accident, after following a boyhood crush to youth theater.

How do you follow a job so exceptionally well done that people are tripping over themselves to praise you? How do you avoid tripping over yourself when suddenly everybody wants you to be in their films? Oh, the angst!

"I am slightly freaked out about it, if I'm being honest," he says. "I really didn't think I was going to work [as an actor]. So the fact that anybody is saying nice things about me is amazing." But, he says, he has choices now, and he's fearful of making the wrong one, of picking the wrong project. "If I don't get it right next time, then it's going to make my fall even bigger."

* * *

This is life on the precipice of great success. This is the freaky terror of being a fairly regular guy when suddenly People magazine includes you in its "Sexiest Men Alive" issue with Matt and Brad.

In "Atonement," McAvoy plays Robbie Turner, an idealistic, upwardly mobile English housekeeper's son whose life takes a ruinous turn when he's accused of a crime he didn't commit.

A gorgeously rendered period piece (Europe, 1930s), "Atonement" triggered a droolfest when it played on the international festival circuit. So, too, did McAvoy's pitch-perfect performance; the director of the Venice Film Festival gushed that McAvoy, at 28, is one of the finest acting talents in world cinema.

Just who is this James McAvoy who has Those Who Closely Follow Cinema all agog?

If you weren't averting your eyes during the final torture scene in "The Last King of Scotland," you might recall him as the naive physician who got strung up by his nipples after crossing Forest Whitaker's detonative Idi Amin. (Prosthetic chest, by the way, though McAvoy did pass out during the first take, after he stopped breathing to help make his pain appear more realistic.)

In "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," he was Mr. Tumnus, the shirtless guy -- well, half-guy, half-goat -- with the hooves, horizontal ears and long tail. Also in the realm of filmic fantasies: He made out with the luminous Anne Hathaway in "Becoming Jane."

Some other movies on his résumé: "Starter for 10" (trivia nerd at college), "Wimbledon" (Paul Bettany's bumbling idiot of a brother), "Rory O'Shea Was Here" (noisy punk in motorized wheelchair).

Okay, so clearly, he hasn't yet achieved the celebrity of his cinematic antecedents.

Consider that McAvoy has been called the next Hugh Grant, or the new Albert Finney. More dizzying praise: Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning executive producer of "Starter for 10," has said that McAvoy possesses "the wit and charm of a young Dustin Hoffman" and "the empathetic everyman quality of a Matt Damon."

"Being Dustin Hoffman and Matt Damon's love child -- 'Bourne Ultimatum' spawned by 'Tootsie' -- would be brilllllllllliant," McAvoy says. "But, ehhhm, yeah, I don't really know. The fact that people are saying nice things like that is kind of incredible and weird, like it's happening to somebody else. But it's nerve-racking because now you're expected to be good in the next thing you do. I'm feeling that pressure a little bit."

Forget what People says. McAvoy isn't an archetypal leading man. In his rugged work boots, he's maybe 5-foot-8. His skin is pale and he has an imperfect set of teeth that could stand to be both straightened and cleaned. (He steadfastly refuses, the very idea of getting cosmetic work done is too disgustingly Hollywood.)

His face? Almost extremely handsome; it's as if he's the plainer-looking younger brother of a devastatingly appealing man. And there's a weariness to his visage, owing mostly to a pair of soft blue eyes underscored by what he refers to as "black bags." As a teenager, McAvoy says, "lots of my relatives were convinced I was a glue-sniffer" because of his pasty skin and those dark, deep circles beneath his eyes.

But looks aside: "He's a damn good actor, which is the main reason I cast him," says "Atonement" director Joe Wright.

Wright first saw McAvoy six years ago in a play at the Hampstead Theatre in London. A recent graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, McAvoy was new to London's theater scene and made an immediate impression, says Wright. "He was just stunning. You could certainly see the seeds of what he'd eventually achieve."

Knightley, who plays McAvoy's romantic obsession in "Atonement," says in an e-mail that he's a "wonderful actor with an incredible intelligence" and "a truthfulness . . . that's totally compelling to watch."

So what makes him so good? Why, in the complicated calculus of cinema, is McAvoy> almost every other young actor?

"Talent, really," Wright says. "It's that simple. There's a lot of hard work; he's incredibly dedicated and committed to doing that hard work. But at the end of the day, there's an acting gene in him, a talent, that most other actors don't have. There's also this everyman sense about him, and he has an incredible openness as well. He doesn't hide behind a character and use it as a shield between himself and an audience. That's one of the reasons he's a leading man."

Is he directable? Wright laughs.

"I thought you asked how delectable he is. He's very delectable! And very directable, as well. This was the closest collaboration I've ever had with a male actor. He never let his ego get in the way; he was always open."

The Working-Class Roots

This, it seems, was critical as "Atonement" was taking shape. McAvoy says Robbie Turner was an "incredibly difficult" role, because, he says, "I've probably based every character I've ever played on conflict, and I couldn't with him." Because the character isn't conflicted, he's the moral core of the story. "He's so idealized," explains McAvoy.

In some ways, there's a bit of James McAvoy in Robbie Turner. They're both working-class, and they're both interlopers whose standing in their new world isn't quite clear. Or, in McAvoy's case, wasn't: He says he used to feel like a fraud in the acting community, "that people would suddenly recognize that I didn't really have talent."

But when McAvoy read for "Atonement," he says it was pretty clear that Wright was intrigued by the similarities between him and Robbie Turner.

"It was something Joe talked to me about in my first audition," McAvoy says. "He said: 'How does it feel to be the great white hope of British acting?' I thought: Are you trying to [expletive] with me? But what he was getting at was: Do you feel out of place? Do you feel like a man out o' water? Do you feel like a sailor on dry land because you're from something so different? Do you feel like you're in danger, like everybody around you knows something you don't? That's very much the situation that Robbie's in, but Robbie's kind of not aware of it. He was using that to wind me up."

Wright says he doesn't remember the exchange, but, he says: "While I don't think it's a requirement that actors be like the parts they play, the story is about a working-class boy being destroyed by this upper-class family, and the ease with which the upper classes are able to do that. . . . And I think there's something inherently working-class about James."

McAvoy grew up on the outskirts of Glasgow, in the Drumchapel housing projects. His childhood was filled with drama: He was just 7 when his parents divorced and his father abandoned him. His mother, a nurse, took him to live with her parents, who ran a strict household -- McAvoy generally wasn't allowed to be outside at night until he turned 15. Too dangerous in the Drum.

Still, nothing about his childhood seemed particularly difficult or traumatic, he says. "There were lots of kids around me that were in the exact same environment and situation, so it felt really normal."

And when his father walked out? McAvoy says that in some respects, his career path was set (though he did consider the priesthood, journalism and the navy). "I think it made me right to be an actor. Having been around that emotional [stuff] sensitized me and made me aware of adult issues early on -- much younger than most kids. . . . I think you stop just going: Me, me, me, me, me. You start to look at the universe where all this interesting and scary [stuff] happens. That's definitely something that's helped me as an actor.

"But, you know, I wouldn't thank him for it. But I wouldn't change anything either. It is what it is, and I'm fine with it. My life's turned out really well."

McAvoy says he hasn't had any contact with his estranged father. But he won't say whether he'd eventually like to reconnect.

"That's something I want keep to myself. Because, you know, I read about actors' lives, and I wish I didn't know all of that. A lot of people come in and out of your life, and sometimes I meet one that's important to me, and I feel like imparting some piece of information that might illuminate the inner workings of my soul, you know? But really what value will it have if that person just read it in GQ magazine? If you give yourself away to everybody, then you're worthless.

"When I was like 22, 23, I'd tell everybody anything about myself. I met someone in a bar, and they'd know my entire life story. It's only in the last five years that I kind of realized that I'm not making my loved ones special. What do the special people in my life get that everybody else doesn't? I might hit 40 and suddenly start becoming a celebrity media whore. But at the moment, I'm very happy to keep myself precious, if you know what I mean."

So, then: Don't bother asking a lot of questions about his marriage to actress Anne-Marie Duff, who was his co-star on the British TV show "Shameless" in 2004. They live in London. No kids. Low profile.

"We don't talk about each other much, and we don't turn up together at lots of events," he says. "We both really rejoice in having a normal life."

That might be changing as McAvoy's profile swells; after the "Atonement" premiere in London, a photographer was waiting outside the couple's home when they returned from an early-morning trip to the farmer's market. "First time in my life that's ever happened to me," he says with a sneer.

This fascination with celebrity -- he doesn't get it. "Celebrities really aren't that interesting or that important."

What about the perks, the free stuff, the swag, that staple of the celebrity-industrial complex? McAvoy says he has an allergic reaction to the gift suites at film festivals, award shows, etc.

"I went to one once, in Toronto," he says. "I very quickly felt quite used. And I think it kind of devalues the things I have. I've worked really, really hard. I love my car. It's a little [expletive] thing -- I don't want to tell you what kind -- but I love it. And I don't want someone to just come and give us a new one. I want to buy one. I don't want people calling me up, asking if I want a pair of their new jeans."

More celebripeeving: "The reason anybody chooses art is because they're probably representative of the human race. Then your life changes and you suddenly don't live with the rest of the human race. It changes your art because you're totally removed from reality. I think it's important to try and be a human being. Otherwise, what's your point of reference for representing humanity on the screen or in pictures or in novel writing or whatever?"

Such a Serious Young Man.

Or not. "I think my wife would be the first to tell you that I'm an absolute [expletive] idiot."

BB Guns and Sci-Fi

And if not her, then how about Jesse Spencer?

Several years ago, Spencer shared a house with McAvoy in London, where the two had met on the set of the BBC drama "Lorna Doone" in 2000. Now, Spencer lives in Los Angeles, playing Dr. Robert Chase on the popular Fox series "House." It's a much safer existence, he says.

"There were four guys living in that house, and we used to put on sunglasses and have these BB gun wars that went on for hours," Spencer says. "We wound up turning the house into a war zone, turning tables onto their sides, building forts. We used to wait for the guy who wasn't home and two or three of us would ambush him when he walked in the door. We screwed around a lot.

"So yeah, James is serious and thoughtful, a very deep guy who has a lot to say about certain things. But he's also a lot of fun to be around. He's a clown."

And when he wasn't firing BB guns in the house, McAvoy watched a lot of television, Spencer says.

"The funny thing about James is that he's so good at dramas and comedies, but what he really loves watching on TV is crappy sci-fi. He'd sit there for hours and watch it. And I'd go: Why do you like that? What's in it for you? But he loves it. I really wouldn't be surprised to see him as the captain on the USS Enterprise."

Or how about the chief engineer? Internet rumor: McAvoy is going to play Scotty in the upcoming "Star Trek" movie directed by J.J. Abrams.

Only, McAvoy says, it's "sooooo not true." For now, it's a sharp turn post-"Atonement," when McAvoy stars in "Wanted," an action flick based on a comic-book mini-series. He plays an office grunt who becomes an assassin. He was initially rejected for the role. Didn't project as a leading man. Then the producers changed their minds. "They wanted someone geeky," he says. Filming wrapped over the summer.

Co-stars: Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie, not necessarily in that order. "It's good entertainment," McAvoy says. "And the fact that Angelina's in it, being violent, killing a lot of people, that's gonna save us." He laughs.

McAvoy, who speaks with a thick Scottish brogue (do becomes "dewwww," etc.), scrubbed his accent for the part, though he won't demonstrate upon request.

Between the releases of "Atonement" and "Wanted," McAvoy might be busy with something else. Awards season is coming up. The ground is vibrating with whispers. McAvoy is trying to tune them out, but . . .

"We've heard a lot of that kind of stuff," he says. He frowns.

Nominations are announced in January. The Academy Awards are in February. Already, McAvoy is annoyed.

"When people start talking about you, it's like: Oh, [expletive] off! You have to walk away from it."

"Don't get me wrong, if it happened, I'd be over the moon. But I dunno. Just because somebody says you might be nominated for an Oscar . . . ehm . . ."

And then, McAvoy's handler arrives, and the actor vaults from his chair.

James McAvoy, on the verge of stardom, is ready to get out of here.