James McAvoy Interview and Bio - The Chronicles of Narnia

James McAvoy - Inside I'm Dancing

Scotsman James McAvoy has worked constantly since leaving the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, appearing in a diverse range of TV projects including Band Of Brothers, White Teeth, State Of Play, and Shameless. As well as extensive theatre work the 25-year-old has starred in films such as Bright Young Things, Bollywood Queen, and Wimbledon. For Inside I'm Dancing he plays Rory, a rebellious young Irishman not prepared to let Duchenne muscular dystrophy stop him living life to the full.

It's a pretty impressive CV you have, from a dissolute toff in Bright Young Things to playing Steve in Shameless...

I know, it's quite jammy really. I've been dead lucky just to have a varied career and not be pigeonholed. But I suppose that's also because a lot of the work I've done has kind of skimmed the radar a bit. So people haven't gone "Wow, that's what he does!", they've said "Oh he was alright in that, not bad".

Rory, the mischievous character at the heart of Inside I'm Dancing, continues this trend doesn't he?

Completely. The guy's from a totally different part of the world to me and he suffers from a significant physical disability, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is a hugely advanced and accelerated form of muscular dystrophy. That's a hugely defining aspect of who he is, though not the only one. He thinks he's charming, and he is, but not as much as he thinks. And he thinks he's right a lot of the time. And he's very arrogant and angry. That's nothing like me.

Did you find that the physical limitations in playing this character actually helped your performance in the end?

I'd say so, but for the first three weeks of rehearsals I was really worried because I consider myself quite a physical actor. With this there was nowhere to hide, which terrified me. Three weeks into the rehearsal I surrendered to it. I still had my body to communicate with, even if it wasn't moving - except for two fingers and my head. That still communicates something, you know? That gave it to me. It changed the way I sounded, and it did things to me in the way that I expressed myself, which I wouldn't have found otherwise. That's the whole physical thing imposing on the mental, instead of the mental imposing on the physical.

There is still a taboo over how people with disabilities are portrayed in films isn't there?

I was pleased that Damien [O'Donnell, the director] had the same idea as I did about Rory. We didn't want to make him a character that people automatically liked. I'm pleased that we've got a character here who's disabled, but isn't necessarily dead nice and meek. He's more real because of that.

What response have you had from the people you researched the character with?

They liked the film a lot. But it's one of those thing that divides people down the middle. I think some people will hate it, but the majority of people I've spoken to in the disabled community think it's a good thing that the film has been made.

Born: 1979, Scotstoun, Glasgow, Scotland, UK (age 25)

Height: 5' 7" (1.70 m)

Awards: 1 nomination

Credited Years: 1995 - 2006

Real Life Quotes

• "We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't."

• "Where it gets difficult is when you get two or three jobs back to back where you're playing leads and doing 13, 14 hours a day, six days a week, and you suddenly think, hang on a minute, how can you have a life like this? Do I work to live or live to work? How can I work properly with no life to inform the work?"

Trivia

• Is a class 4 fencer

• He plays guitar

• Trained at Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

• James McAvoy & Jessica Brooks will be the first actors to tackle the complex roles Leto II & his twin sister Ghanima Atreides, the strange prescient "Children of Dune" in Frank Herbert's novel of the same name. Even though Leto & Ghanima were only 9 years old in the novel, their ages will be bumped up about 7 years making them about 16 in the sci-fi channel mini in March 2003.

• Is a talented gymnast/acrobat