JAMES MCAVOY GETS IT RIGHT

Actor James McAvoy is in high demand these days. After his breakout role in The Last King of Scotland, followed by lauded roles in Atonement and the action-packed Wanted, the affable Scottish actor is now a bona fide movie star.

Currently starring in Sony Pictures Classics’ The Last Station, McAvoy plays a devoted follower of famed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, which also stars Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, Paul Giamatti, and McAvoy’s wife, Anne-Marie Duff

The Last Station director, Michael Hoffman, says of McAvoy, “He has great purity, and an audience willingly give themselves over to him as an Everyman. In The Last King of Scotland, they were quite happy to be led by him, and it’s the same here. Audiences completely trust him.”

In fact, the actor and the director have been talking about The Last Station for years. “Mike and I first talked about this movie several years ago, even before I went to Uganda to shoot The Last King of Scotland, McAvoy points out. “I remained attached to The Last Station for all these years because it was a great opportunity to act in such a well-written script.”

Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, the 30-year-old actor always had dreams of seeing the world, either as a missionary, which he thought about as an adolescent, or as an officer in the navy. Instead, he has impressively made his way around the globe as an actor.

Currently filming in Savannah, Georgia, where he is working on the Robert Redford helmed The Conspirator, McAvoy is a charmer who definitely possesses that intangible “it” quality that separates actors from stars, although he’d gladly prefer to be in the actor category as even he admits, many of his plum roles were the result of chance.

Venice recently spoke with the actor about The Last Station, his obsession with getting to see the world, and his career, which has definitely made him a wanted man.

Venice: Congratulations on The Last Station.

James McAvoy: Thank you.

Your character seems somewhat along the same lines as your character in The Last King of Scotland. Do you think that’s fair to say?

I didn’t think the roles were similar at all. Literally, the role [my character] plays in [The Last Station] is the same in terms of he’s a normal guy from outside who is blown away, thrown up against an exceptionally massive celebrity. And it’s about his initial reaction to that developing into his sort of ultimate realization and beyond that, where do they go and what does he do with that information once he sees them for what they really are? That’s the same but I felt that the two people are incredibly different people. It felt like the journey was somewhat similar but the actual characters and the characters’ realization were particularly different.

Do you look at it as a good role is a good role?

Pretty much, pretty much. If it’s a cool script and good role…The Last King of Scotland was a thriller, it wasn’t really a bio-pic, funny enough. And The Last Station isn’t really a bio-pic either, because it’s not just about one person. It’s an ensemble piece. And also, I think it’s funny, which I don’t usually see in a costume drama or in a bio-pic about a famous writer. Bio-pics generally aren’t that funny, and I just find it very funny. I wouldn’t say it’s a comedy but I’d say that it has humor that I don’t usually see in this type of film. That, and the fact that I thought this was a great character, just made me think this is something to do.

You’re working alongside some amazing actors like Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti. And you’re also working with your wife. Do you ever get nervous acting opposite her?

Not really, we met working together so it’s the same old story for us.

She has an amazing scene with Helen Mirren towards the end of the film.

I know. She’s a talented actress, Anne- Marie. It was nice to be together. We didn’t actually do much acting together but it was nice to be around each other for that couple of months.

Michael Hoffman, the film’s director, said this film is about the “great battle between idealism and reality.” Can you tell us about your attraction to the screenplay?

When I can, I would rather play a character that changes. And, hopefully, most of the lead characters in a film will change by the end of the film, because otherwise the story ain’t worth the characters, they just serve the story and they themselves are not the story. And within this film, I think, all the lead characters are individual stories themselves. They are walking stories. My character’s particular personal evolution has to do with maturity, and it also has to do with his appreciation of who Tolstoy is and what Tolstoyism is and what love is. He falls out of love with his demigod but, ultimately, ends up falling deeper in love with the real man himself. Tolstoy was a great thinker but you can’t expect great thinkers to live their lives the way they think. The fact that he didn’t live his life the way he proclaimed that life should be lived doesn’t mean that his thoughts are any less valid. It’s about myth vs. reality.

Have you ever been so star struck by someone yourself?

Not really. I made an ass out of myself in front of Tom Hanks once on the set of “Band of Brothers.” I’ve never been that enamored of someone. I find it funny when people are that in awe of celebrities or politicians or people of note. I’m in awe of people when they’ve done something incredible, but that’s day-to-day, normal people. I’ve generally never really been in awe of anybody except Tom Hanks because I was fairly drunk when I was talking to him. I had watched all his movies when I was a kid and they were a big part of my movie education growing up, watching all those comedies. So when he threw a party halfway through the filming of “Band of Brothers,” because he was a producer on it, and he was there and talking to me, I fucking made a right dick of myself.

That was an amazing miniseries.

It was great. I was only in one episode but it was such a privilege to be part of just that one episode. That was my second TV gig out of drama school.

You’re an actor in demand these days and you’ve made great choices, but you have said that as a working actor you would have taken “rubbish” parts if that was all that was offered.

Totally, I was just lucky to have fallen into some nice jobs. When I got offered The Last King of Scotland, it’s not like there were 10 different movie offers on my lap. There were other offers, there was theater and TV and maybe one or two other films but none of them were playing the lead role and that’s why I did The Last King of Scotland. I wasn’t even sure that The Last King of Scotland was going to be any good. It wasn’t like I said, “This is going to be amazing and I have to do this.” It was a lead role and I thought I should make that step. And I was just fortunate that it turned out to be a good movie that was well received.

You just have to roll the dice.

Yeah! And Atonement was the same. Atonement was a little more of an offer but I didn’t have to choose between 20 other scripts.

What did you want to do growing up in Glasgow?

I was going to join the Navy or go to drama school, and I got into drama school so I went to drama school. That was the time I decided to be an actor. It was either that or go to officer training school.

I also read you wanted to be a missionary.

Years ago when I was a kid I considered it. And I mentioned it one time in an interview and it followed me, but I did consider it.

It seems like you had dreams of getting away or at least to see the world.

Yeah, a little bit. And acting ended up doing its thing and I realized I didn’t have to go away to have a whole new life.

And acting has afforded you the opportunity to see the world in a more comfortable way than the Navy ever would have.

Yeah, totally. I’ve been granted access to some incredible places. Even if I’m filming in my own city, in Glasgow or London, the places you get to see, the things you get to do, the places you get to work in, you’d never get access to. It’s just incredible.

Who were your heroes growing up

I didn’t really have any. I’ve been asked that because my character idolized Tolstoy so much, but I didn’t really have any I think, at all. Sorry, man.

When did the light bulb go off in your head where you realized acting was what you wanted to do?

I got a part in a film when I was 16, literally out of the blue. A guy asked me if I wanted to audition for a film that he was making and I said yes. And I got the part. And then I didn’t do anymore acting for the next two or three years because I didn’t have an agent or any access, and there isn’t that much work in Glasgow. So when I was 18 and leaving high school and my options were go to the Navy or get a job or try to get into acting school, I thought, well, I did that movie and I enjoyed it, I’ll give it a try. And I got in and that was it, really.

Did you see a lot of movies when you were a child?

I went to the movies a lot, and also, we didn’t have cable. We had four channels, BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, and Channel 4, and that was the reason why I watched a lot of movies that I wouldn’t have watched otherwise, because you just watch whatever is on. I watched a hell of a lot of movies growing up.

Who are among your favorite actors?

Sam Rockwell, you know the big one, Pacino, you love whatever he’s doing, Jeff Bridges, there are a lot. I can’t even think of them right now. At the moment, my favorite actor that I’ll watch in anything is Sam Rockwell.

What do you like best about acting?

I like the fact that it’s a creative endeavor and imaginative. You have to engage your imagination and create, and that’s exciting. Just getting it right is a great feeling. When you know you have something right it’s just a great feeling. And telling stories, I just love telling stories, that’s the most important.

What’s your next film?

The Conspirator with Robert Redford directing and Robin Wright Penn and Evan Rachel Wood and Justin Long and Tom Wilkinson. I’m filming that right now in Savannah, Georgia

Whom do you play in that?

I play a guy named Frederick Aiken who was a Union solider in the Civil War, a Captain and a war hero, and on the day that Washington celebrates the surrender of the Southern army, although it was only Robert E. Lee who surrendered, there were still 180,000 Confederate soldiers in the field, they celebrated the winning of the war. On that night, Lincoln was assassinated and one month later the trial of the conspirators and the assassins is put into effect in a military tribunal, which is a military trial of civilians. Basically, the government says we want them all hanged, and my character, who has never tried a criminal case, ends up with one of the most high profile clients you could ever get at that time.

What can you say about I’m with Cancer? That’s a comedy, right? Is comedy something you’re interested in doing?

Well, I’m with Cancer isn’t a comedy. It’s being billed as a comedy and people keep saying it’s a comedy, but it’s not. It’s a film that is sometimes very funny, but it’s not a comedy. Unless they rewrite it, it’s not going to be a comedy. I think the expectations of it being a comedy can only hurt the film, but it’s a story about something that actually happened to a real person. He got cancer and then got better, and it’s basically about his year or two years fighting cancer. And it just so happens that the guy in it happened to be a scriptwriter and has written a lot of comedy so he has written a funny account of what happened, but it’s funny at times and it’s very sad at times.

Where do you stand with a sequel to Wanted?

I’m still waiting to hear what’s going to happen. I don’t think they have a script yet. I know they definitely want to do it and if it takes a couple of years to get it right, then they’ll do that. I’m signed up to do another one anyway. When they gave me the first role they made me sign up for two more, so I’m tied in and happy to revisit it.

That was a film that really blew up.

It was nice to do something completely different but at the same time, weirdly, I still felt that the actor in me was satisfied a lot of the time because there was a big character progression. That’s what I like to do, play characters that change. I had fun as an actor playing that character.

What do you hope audiences take away from seeing The Last Station?

Hopefully, they’ll have fucking cried a lot and laughed a lot. That’s what I’d like.

Are you a crier?

Yeah, I cry easy. I cry easy as an actor and as an audience member. ▼