James McAvoy
Appearances
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I want to watch somebody give something. Like, I personally believe that the origins of performance and the origins of performance art, the orange? The orange of performance art is in an orchard in Sicily. I think that the
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
origin of performance art comes from fucking human sacrifice it comes from sacrificing a goat or sacrificing a baby or sacrificing a person and a bunch of people watching it going please let it rain this year and that's the origin of theatre that's the origin of and the person that's up there
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
getting sacrificed, turned into performers, sweating blood, sacrificing something of themselves, whether that's literally their health, their blood, their dignity, their sexuality, their fucking humanity. Whatever it is that you're sacrificing when you're on stage or on screen, you've got to leave something up there. You've got to work. I want to see somebody sweat blood.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And that's not for everybody. Some people want to watch an actor just go like that. Right.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Here's my spin on it, because... Which is... Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to backtrack and justify and reverse engineer something that makes me sound like I've got more integrity. But... But... I think that I do what I do, and I...
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
put myself out there for criticism, and even if it's a successful piece, not everybody likes it, and you take fucking crazy criticism, even in the stuff that people said was good. And what it means when you make some money is that, fuck, people actually went to see it, and we found an audience, and we communicated, and we managed to communicate with people, because that's all it is, isn't it?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Art is just about communication. Sometimes when we say when we're making art, people go like, oh, they're talking about art,
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
what it means is we're trying to communicate art is an attempt to communicate and if you've made some money what it really means is you manage to communicate yeah you manage to find instead of this nebulous thing where it's like yeah i got this movie on a website at the moment it's doing great yeah 4.5 people have seen it worldwide and it's fucking it's out there and you're like that's even you can make a great piece of art but nobody saw it so
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
you didn't get to communicate and that is something that's becoming harder and harder to do in the cinemas maybe it's easier to do it in the streamers but it's also like the streamers are like this this like kaleidoscope of whirlpools that you're getting pulled into and each whirlpool has a thousand things in it that the algorithm helps you watch it, I don't know. I think that's fair.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I grew up in a council estate in Glasgow called Drum Chapel. Council estate is something you guys call, not schemes, projects. So I was in high school. I was about 15, 16. We were doing Macbeth in English. My English teacher knew a director and an actor who had done Macbeth in the 70s. And he came in and talked to us. I recognised him immediately immediately.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Cause he was a, he was like a movie actor. He'd done like movies with Chris O'Donnell. And, um, and I was like, I've seen you in Vertical Limit. You're like the bad guy in Vertical Limit with fucking Chris O' fucking O'Donnell. And I was like, wow. And then I was like, I've also seen you in a film with fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger. And, um, he was pretty cool.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
He took a lot of shit from some of the guys in the class. Uh, And at the end of it, I just went up and I said, listen, I'm sorry about that. Thank you very much for coming. If you're making a movie again, because he was a film director, would you please consider letting me come and making tea or coffee for you? Wow. For a week or something like that.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And he called back months later and he was like, is that kid still there? Send him to the production office. He was making this movie about child prostitution and pornography in Glasgow. Wow. And he was like, here's the script, read it. And I read it and I went, come in here. can you try and play Kevin, this young guy called Kevin Savage. And he was like, can you make yourself cry?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'd never done any acting at this point. And I got the part and we left the room and he was like, we found the guy, this is him. And do you know what's really weird, right? There was a TV show called Streetwise. Streetwise! It was a kid's show and it was about mountain bike couriers in London
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
uh that were led by a saxophone playing andy circus right no way i love yeah man i love that they were like crime fighting mountain bike couriers and um and i it was brilliant and and he played the saxophone and i was like that's andy circus he was walking into the production office and andy was playing a glaswegian pimp with dreadlocks and uh and
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
My first bit of being a professional actor was literally being told, you're going to play the part. And then I walked out and Andy Serkis went, are you actually from Glasgow? Are you like the real deal, like from a council estate or whatever? And I was like, yeah, man. He was like, great, come sit with me. And he was like recording me and recording my voice.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I was teaching Andy fucking Serkis from Streetwise. For my sister, Tracy in Wisconsin, Andy Serkis is fantastic.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
gollum and lord of the rings he was planet of the apes he's a great character actor also great director incredible guy yeah just a good guy who was the director of this film of the child prostitution that that discovered you it was a movie uh called the near room uh it was a reference to um a muhammad ali quote talking about the space that he would go i think before a fight yeah would the alligators play trombones
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And it was a guy called David Heyman, not to be confused with the producer who does Harry Potter and since then many, many things. Right, right. But Scottish actor, director, philanthropist and really good, really good actor. But I'd said to him, and I was not that good in the film. And... And I've said publicly quite a few times, like, I'd love to pay him back.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'd love to be in something for him. And he sent me something one day, and I was like, I don't think it's quite right for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. There's not enough acting in it.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
You guys are harsh. You guys are friends, right? You guys like each other and shit, right?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Deep research here. It's a lie that I've told in many interviews. Really? Yeah, just to try and make myself sound like I'm the kind of guy you want to corrupt and attract people to me. No, I consider being a very specific kind of priest. Not a handsy one, for a start. Then I'm out. We just lost Sean.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I thought being a missionary sounded kind of cool because you get to go to far-flung places and do far-flung things and have a great time. I then started to finally find a little bit of luck with the opposite sex around about 15 and 16. I went, I am not...
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
selling my sexuality to God for the rest of my life so it was Catholicism wasn't it so that took me out of that I was going to join the Navy at one point and I was going to and then I was going to go to university and then I thought listen I did this acting thing when I was 16 I'll try it for acting school the one acting school in my town in my city and I luckily got in and this is the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I come from a country with a proud history of socialist democracy, so luckily I was the last person I think I was the last year to have their tuition completely paid for them.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, yeah. It was kind of, I guess it was tough to get in. I was really, I was lucky I got in at my first try. If I hadn't got in at my first try, I might have gone off and done one of those other things, you know. But listen, to answer your question, Sean, I would say there's a couple of things I would pass on. One is try and be more American in terms of what you do as an actor.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Try and create your own work. Because you guys, I think it's changing now, but me coming up, it felt like us as young actors, it was like, you're a hired gun. You're like a carpenter that's hired in. And you guys, when I met you guys, you guys, when I met you guys back in like 2003 when I first started coming to America, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
You're like, you've got two editions a month and you've got a production company and you've written four scripts and you're like... how'd you do this? Like, what do you mean? You got a development deal with who? I was like, what?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I could not believe, but it's also grown up within an industry that is actually an industry, whereas in Britain, it's a little bit, we feel lucky to be here and we feel lucky to get to do the secret thing that like fairies and elves get to do. And it feels a bit more like a cottage industry.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'm directing at the moment. I'm about to go into prep for my first film in the 26th of August. Oh, that's great. It's really exciting. Which is really exciting. But I don't want to produce. I don't want to write. I don't want to do those things. I've done those things in the past and I did not find it to be my wheelhouse. What's drawing you to the directing? Control, power, abuse of it.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
not the paycheck not the paycheck do you know what I've been looking to tell stories about my own country for a long long time and every single story I got sent was like gritty Scottish drama about drugs and the kind of neighbourhoods I grew up in and all that yeah
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, but actually, Trainspotting would be okay, because that was an incredibly beautiful, artistic way to tell stories about people who have no opportunities. But likewise, this is a true story. I just burped on camera. Do not cut that.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It's only audio. It's only audio. Audio smells. Do you want me to tell you what it's about? Yeah, please. It's not going to be out for like 14 years. Don't worry.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I need to be in it. I need to be in it to get it bonded. it's about it's a true story about two rappers from Dundee who uh rapped about Scottish things in their Scottish accent they came down to London in the early 2000s and they did an audition for Sony they literally got laughed out of the room even though they were awesome uh and they came back like a year later.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
They'd re-recorded all their demos and all their backing tracks with American accents and they pretended to be these two skater dudes from Hemet in California. And they got a record deal from the same label. That day, for 35 grand, and they got housed, and they got given a studio, and they got an A&R rep, and for two and a half years, they pretended to be 24-7.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Like, even when they were alone together, they pretended to be these two dudes called Silver and Brains. Wow. And they nearly made it. They nearly made it. It's an incredible story. But yeah, so that's the film we're making. That's pretty great. It's called California Scheming.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It's just me on my own with my camcorder. And a mirror. I'm going to shoot it on my iPhone in my basement. I'm really excited. We're independent at the moment. Studio Canal are involved. Screen Scotland are involved.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I ain't one of the guys. I'm too old. These guys were like 1920. Well, Will, you can hang on.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Hard looks. I think it just requires me to be kind of me, but I might get nervous at the last minute throwing a limp. Or just have the guy have a cold the whole movie. Yeah, that's a good idea. He's got to be Scottish.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Hey, that's the thing. If I internalize the eyepatch, you will see the eyepatch.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I was not scared. I got that job pretty last minute because it was mainly be whacking Phoenix. Oh, really? Excuse me, I just burped again. I'm drinking fizzy water, guys. It's all I drink. It's all I drink.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Joaquin Phoenix was supposed to do it and because he had a relationship with M. Night Shyamalan um from like Signs and was he in the village as well I think he's in the village isn't he yeah and um and then I don't know what happened but like two weeks before they started shooting he read the script or something I don't want to do this and for whatever reason he fell out and so I get the call saying hey do you want to read this it's super secret you've got to read it and then like give it back and I was like cool and they were saying it's M. Night Shyamalan and I
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
i've been a fan of loads of his films and i was like definitely it came to me and i thought this has got the potential to be really good like it could also go off a cliff and be really bad but i think that's the case with most really interesting or fun things right they could go either way that's not a criticism of his material there by the way um
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
but yeah it was a lot of characters it was a lot of work but it was well written and I thought it's good hard work and as long as I've got enough time to come up with this we can figure it out but it was down to the wire trying to find all the characterisations the last one we found was at the table read in fact Jason Blum had flown in and people from Universal had flown in to Philly where we made the film and yeah
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'm doing this table read going like we haven't really found the character Hedwig and at the last minute who modeled it after Blum I just drove around LA in a van all the time I just want to say to Blum you finally made it onto the podcast you know what I mean he's listening he's listening he's in the queue he's coming in we love him we're going to bring him on he's cool I think their company do good things
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
This new film is a Blumhouse as well. And it does, the Blumhouse does so well.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It's down to the wire. And the... Director Knight goes, listen, I think for the character of Hedwig, the kid in the movie, he's like, I think you should do it with like a sibilant S. I'm like, like a lisp? He's like, we say sibilant S. And I was like, all right, cool, I'll do it with a sibilant lisp. And I'm like, what? I'm just going to throw this in to the table read.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I was like, are you kidding? Oh, fuck, okay. And then within seconds of doing it, I was like... this was a good call. And suddenly the whole character came together. But no, look, it was a lot of heavy lifting that job, but if you can lift it, then it's a good lift. Do you know what I mean? I'm speaking like I'm a total bro.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I think there's only really been one time in my career where I brought it home. Actually, there's maybe three times in my career where I brought it home.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
but I do like what you just said it is always me it doesn't matter how weird it is or how wacky it looks or how different it seems from my personality it's always me there's no becoming the character it's always me there's always it's some version of yourself you know what I mean so that's all you have to give
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And if you, if some other actor says that, but no, I actually do transform into someone else. Like I'm cool with that. I'll believe them too. But for me, it's just, it's all you have is your own tool, your own body. But the only jobs that I've brought at home were Macbeth because it was all about losing children for me. And that just the whole of Macbeth was,
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I was apparently not an easy person to live with when I did Macbeth. And then whenever I've played a victim, I've played a victim kind of twice now, maybe in a Danny Boyle movie called Trance and then a movie that I just made in Germany. And I just felt awful about myself because I was such a victim of circumstance and other people's control. I did not enjoy that experience.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And that's the only times that I've ever brought it home with me, those three.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'm just asking. I'm like 6'4", so my IMDb page, I'm like bigger than Hugh Jackman. Are you really 6'4"? No, I'm 5'7". Oh, are you?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Do you know what? I didn't do it for the movie. I just did it for the fun. I did it because we were in the lockdown. We were in pandemic land. Yeah, yeah. And I just had my second child. And I was like, you know what? I can't let having a child, again, stop me from exercising for three years. So I was like, I'm going to double down.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I started eating crazy amounts of food and lifting crazy heavy weight. And two years later, this script came along. And it was like, oh, perfect. This works.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Rhythm. I don't know if there's rhythm. My agent, Ruth Young, who I've been with since I was 20, always says, do one for them, do one for yourself. And it ends up being more a little bit like do like four for them and do one for yourself. If I come back and I manage to get to do theatre, it has generally over the last 15 years been with Jamie Lloyd. The same director again and again and again.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And the biggest thing with theatre for me is it's a risk because it's the most exposing thing you can do as an actor. And you have to go up and sacrifice something every single night. And if it's shit, you're sacrificing and it's like going down like a cup of cold sick and the audience are sitting there literally going like...
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
or they're asleep right and you can fucking see it and that kills man that hurts whereas you make a movie like the audience experience of that is like time travelling a year and a half in the future and you're not even there like you can get back and you get paid like way better and it's a different thing
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It does. They both have the creative fulfillment. But if I was going to be in a bad play or a bad movie, I'd rather be in a bad play. If I was going to be in a good play or a good movie, I'd rather be in a good play.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Not many, actually. I've missed some killer jobs because I didn't get them. And I've missed... But then your career pans out differently and you're glad you didn't get it. Yeah, yeah.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, yeah. So I went up for Pilots of the Caribbean when I was Nezobadi. This is Orlando Bloom's part? Orlando ended up getting it. It was me. I think I remember it was a guy called Paul Nichols and Orlando and someone else. And I don't even think Orlando was auditioning, actually. I think he was off in Middle Earth doing those movies with Peter Jackson. And it was me and these two other guys.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Sean. Yeah, yeah. No, that's where he was. I believe it was the second film.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Mordor. And I went and screen camera tested it. I felt like, I think I got really close to it. I ended up having to do this camera test with Keira Knightley, who I later ended up doing a tournament with. Anyway, got real close to it, and then it never happened. But that was one that I was like,
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I would get to go to like sunny places and be on ships and dress like with a wig on and like shoot like guns that have powder that come out of them because they're muskets, man. And like, like, oh, Johnny Depp. Kira was amazing. It was, it was. And there were like five of them, right? I know. There were like 15 of them. And I was, I was, I was kind of gutted about that one that I never got it.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I understand. But then my career went a different way and I was so happy with how my career went that I was very philosophical about it and like totally fine with it. But at the time for about a year, I was like, man, the one that got away, you know. There is one more I could tell you about. Yes, please. But I don't want to tell you about it.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It was a big one. There was a big one, and the director who cast me in it, I'd seen him really early in my career for a small part in a movie, playing like the younger version of one of the main bad guys at the beginning of the movie. So I'd only be in it for like five, ten minutes, but it was like an awesome part. And I came in for this audition.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And by the end of the audition, like, we'd shared so much life shit. He was crying. I was crying. Like, the audition went amazing. Like, the acting was, like, it went great. And as I'm walking out of the room, he's like, oh, my God, well, we found the guy. It's him. We found the guy. They never even called my agent.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
You still didn't understand. I did not think great of their casting. However, that was like the snidiness of youth movie. But years later, there's this big, huge, gazillion dollar movie getting made and they come to me and they go, listen, we would love you to meet So and so with this director. And so I go and sit down with this director and I'm like, you remember me, right?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And he's like, no, have we met? I'm like, I love your work. And I'm like, no, no, no, we met. And I relay the whole story to him. And he's like, nah, don't have a single memory of that. We were in tears together. You said we found the guy and looked at me as I left the room.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I actually did sign on to the film, but it took three years. And yeah, I was like, I wasn't trying to like take him to task. I was just like, dude, this is funny. We need to talk about this. But it took like three years. to actually get it going. And by the time those three years had passed, I had a kid, and this movie was being filmed on the other side of the world.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I was like, I am not going out there for a year and a half of my life to go and do whatever, you know.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I understand. We can talk about that, bro. Drive a cab. What do you mean? For free? Just get my shits. What do I do on the side?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Do you know what? It's like being a dad and being a guy at home. And working out. No, not anymore. I haven't worked out in about six months. But yeah, I was doing a lot of that before. Yeah, yeah. Play video games with my kids.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
So it's actually- James had a problem. I had a real problem. I don't like to talk about it, but I feel like- Let's talk about it. The more I can make people aware, maybe I can help someone else.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Right. Note my friends. They're like laser dude six. And he's also- These are my comrades.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'm in remission. Listen, I've lapsed a couple of times. The first time I realized I had a problem, I was making a movie in Ireland with Anne Hathaway and it was called Becoming Jane. It was about Jane Austen.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I'm getting home every night, and my wife at the time had bought me an Xbox and this fantasy role-playing game called Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls, aptly fucking entitled Oblivion, because that's what it was taking my life. And I remember getting home from work at like seven or eight or like nine, one of those crazy...
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
hours that you get home at in the movie business and I order a pizza and like a two litre bottle of coke or as we call it in Scotland a two litre bottle of ginger any soft drink fizzy soft drink can be called ginger ginger
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
two litre bottle of ginger and a pizza hut and I stick in Oblivion and I go to Oblivion and then I just remember going I'll just play for five minutes more I'll play for five minutes more and then my driver is waiting to take me to work at 6.30 in the morning and I was and this is like not the first time it happened on that job either and I was like something has changed
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I press the eject button and the CD comes out of the disk drive. And I go over to the gas stove and I turn on the gas stove and I'm standing there like this going, how am I going to fall in love with Jane Austen today? And I'm like... Because, you know... And then I just drop it on the gas stove and I just watch it melt. And then I...
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
i walked away that's a bottom yeah i mean it's a real thing like people it's it's a yeah and your bottom is only when you decide to stop digging you know what i mean yeah yeah but um the pandemic i had the same thing as you man i had like three buddies we all went hey guys should we just get like a should we all get like a like a ps4 or something and we're like we'll all play some shooting game come to like two years later and we're like john john i'm going in
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I think I'm the last man standing. I'm the last guy still playing. You are.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
No, no, no, no, no. There had to be a cap. Do you know what? To be honest, I came back from a job in Germany where I did a lot of it because I was just on my own and I didn't have my family with me. And that was quite good. And I bought a little laptop to make it portable.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
But since I've come home and I'm getting into prep and I'm casting and I'm working on the script and all that, there's just no time for it. And actually, it's been kind of good. Because it's time to be an adult at 45.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Like, during the pandemic, it was running around for dance getting killed by, like, 12-year-old guys in China.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
We were bad at that game for two years. My squad and I. We were... What was the name? It was K-Chuck. There was... Because it was a pandemic, one of them named himself Touch of Flu. And then... And then the other one was Severe Shock O. And I was Walker Janeway, which is a character I played in a middle-class New York play once.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And there's people running around going like, I'm going to kill you, Severe Shock O. I'm going to kill you, Touch of Blue. And then going, I'm going to get you, Walker Janeway? It was like so bougie. But yeah, no, it was, and you know what I found as well, right? I've been pals with those guys since my early 20s.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And what was really special about it was that we'd be running around going like, push, push, push, I'm going in. Fucking hell, John, support me. So when did you say that you got that procedure done? Oh my God, that's interesting. I never knew that about you. And we would just like, in a way we never had.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
We were so bad at it for two solid years. We never got any better, and it was a lot of fun. We laughed our asses off.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Jimmy Frow. Jimmy Frow. Jimmy Frow. Thanks, you guys. Guys, thanks a million. Seriously, love your stuff. And as performers, actors, writers, directors, yous are fucking amazing, the threes. Thank you.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
He's amazing. And also one of the greatest Liverpool players of all time, Kenny Dalglish. Not to mention Graeme Souness. But Kenny Dalglish was also a massive, massive icon for Celtic as well.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, I know. He's brilliant. He's really amazing. He's famously dour, but I was lucky enough to be managed by him at a charity football event once. And I spent like three or four days with him during this time.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I'm going to leave on the wing. It's been great, guys. Thanks very much. This has been like the real middle part of my career. Thank you. Fucking fuck!
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, yeah. I don't get Jim too much. There's one guy who brilliantly is also... Not brilliantly, he is Scottish, but he rather brilliantly calls me... Because he's called Jockey and he calls me Jockey. And a couple of mates call me Jimmy Floyd.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I don't know where jocky comes from. Jock is also rhyming slang for Scottish person because it's sweaty sock jock. Oh, really?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
If you're a sweaty sock in England, if you're like a cockney and you're referring to Scottish people, you say sweaty sock because it rhymes with jock. But he was called jocky and for some reason he would call me jocky. But then most of my mates would call me Jimmy Floyd.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Wait, where does Floyd come from? Two of my favorite football players, one of them was Henrik Larsson. His name didn't become anything to do with mine. The other one was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank. And so they used to call me Jimmy, and then they started calling me Jimmy Floyd. And then they just dropped the Jimmy, and most of them just called me Floyd.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And then I've got one mate who's from Newcastle who calls me Jimmy Flowell. Jimmy Flow. Jimmy Flow. Nobody calls me shit.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Well, listen, by the end of this podcast, we're going to have a nickname for you. Crank Uncle Grumps. Uncle Hansy. Yeah.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
It's soda water and lime right now. I did have a Cosmo right before we started this.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
This is my basement. This is my little man cave. I don't like that term, but it is like my little place that I get to come and be. And I've got a little sort of wanker gem over there. And I've got a TV in front of me. We're going to let you rephrase that. It's where I get stronger as a wanker. working my technique. I like try and make it harder for myself. Sometimes I put weights on my hands.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Yeah, no, definitely. Look, 100%, I've been really lucky not to just have to play the same kind of thing again and again and again. Although... Latterly, I have been looking at my fucking career.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Well, you know, I am in my wanker gym, which is where I think about myself. Generally, whilst looking at myself in that mirror over there.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
No, I'm thinking about my career and I'm talking about actors that I love and respect whilst doing press junkets for this movie that I've got coming out, Speak No Evil.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And so many of the actors that I respect and admire, and I wouldn't say emulate because I don't try to emulate anyone, are actors who have repeatedly kind of done the same thing. And even if they're playing a character or a person who's in a different situation or a different scenario, which means the same thing, they're kind of the same guy and everything.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And yet I don't disrespect them for that. And yet I've spent my whole career trying to go like, I'm going to be this guy. No, I'm going to be this guy. I'm going to be this guy. And then luckily in Split and in Glass, I got to do many guys all in one, some women as well.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
So it kind of makes me call into question the fucking point of playing all these different characters when all the actors I really love are attached.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Do you know what it is as well? Listen, I can put it down to a turning point in my career. Let's go, guys.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Guys, about to get fucking profound. Let's go. I've definitely got an erection.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I did a film when I was in my mid to late 20s that was I can't really say what film it is because I'll end up slagging off the person that I'm talking about but slagging off means bad mouthing translated for you colonials and so it was a great success and everything went great and we got award nominated and we made loads of money and all that
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Like a year and a half, two years later, he comes back to me and he's like, dude, I want you to do this film with me. It's based on a book. And I read the book and I'm like, I love this character. It's amazing. I get the script. I read the script. And they've chopped the balls off the character completely.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And this incredibly dynamic, fucking diverse, like acting character that is in the book is just this guy who's like,
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Dough-eyed and cries a lot and does a lot of silent acting. Does a lot of movie acting, do you know what I mean?
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Which I'd done previously with this director to great, again, to great acclaim and all that kind of stuff. It was good for me. And we had a chat about it and I said, well, look, I don't think we've really captured who he is in the book and stuff. And we kind of fell out. We kind of had a bit of a tit-a-tit, right? And he goes, he goes, oh, no, I get it. You want to do acting. Oh, boy. Oh.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
And I was like, that kind of made my decision for me. I didn't say this to him, but inside I was like, do you know what, mate? Yes, I fucking do. Right, it's what I do. But then I have this moment at 45 going like, why are all the actors I really admire not doing any acting? And I'm out here going like, look at my lip. Look at my lip. Look at my accent. But I like telling the story on purpose.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
I get pissed off doing movie acting because, I don't enjoy it, and yet I do get to watch other actors do movie acting, and I go, fuck, that's brilliant. It's like magic.
SmartLess
"James McAvoy"
Face acting. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes I can watch something and go, that is full. That is real. And I'm like, I'm there for it. But nothing acting, sometimes it winds me up so much.