James McAvoy

Interview By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

James McAvoy has been quietly building a solid resume, appearing in films such as The Chronicles of Narnia , The Last King of Scotland , and Becoming Jane . He has also been dubbed one of People's sexiest men alive, earned the title of best on-screen kisser according to his co-star Keira Knightley, recently completed the action-thriller Wanted with Angelina Jolie, and has a Scottish accent to die for. Now this man of many talents is garnering some series Oscar-buzz for his latest role in the tragic romance, Atonement. The dashing McAvoy is well on his way to captivating audiences with his heartbreaking portrayal of Robbie Turner, an aspiring doctor in love with his childhood friend (Knightley) whose life is turned upside down when he is accused of a crime he didn't commit.

The film takes place in the 1935 and goes through the start of World War II. McAvoy reveled in portraying this time period. 'It's of such interest to me, that period, that a lot of the research I did wasn't even research, it was just personal reading,' he says. 'I got to use a lot of that for the first time. However, more important than any of the reading and any of the first-person accounts I had seen on tape or TV, was meeting two veterans that had been at Dunkirk. They didn't enlighten me very much at all as to what happened because they found it difficult to talk about and so much so that they told us very little about the darker side of what happened. They told us a lot of funny stories about Dunkirk and they were really interesting men but at the end of our meeting with them one of the two gentlemen leaned forward to Danny Mayes, me, and Nonso Anozie who played the three soldiers in the Dunkirk sequence, and said, 'When you're making this boys, just know how terrible it was.' And to know how much it cost that guy to say that imparted a kind of emotional truth; it gave us an emotional research that we wouldn't have had otherwise and it imbued that day and that scene with much more respect.'

In the Dunkirk sequence McAvoy refers to, director Joe Wright included an astonishing six-minute tracking shot. 'Joe pretty much came to me and said we're going to do this 6-minute tracking shot, just like he described, and said what do you think about that'' he says. 'And I went, wow that's really ambitious, man. We all only had one day to do it in because we couldn't afford 1,000 extras for any more than that really. So everybody busted a gut and he managed to galvanize everybody and make it bond because something like that really needs to hang together and it's hard to make it hang together. But he managed to corral and he managed to rustle everybody together brilliantly and he had a crew busting a gut for him and a cast as well. And a 1,000 extras actually who'these guys are inexperienced. They were guys from a really economically depressed part of our country in the northeast who had probably never seen a film like Atonement let alone be an extra in a film like Atonement. They gave it their all, man. They helped make it. Those 1,000 supporting artists are half the reason why that massive scene works.'

Amazingly, the scene only took three and a half takes to complete. According to McAvoy, the first two takes 'sucked' and the fourth one was aborted halfway through because the Steadicam operator collapsed of exhaustion. Take three was the charm. 'In this part of the collaborative experience we had 1,800 people involved and any one of them could have screwed it up and the fact that we did one take where nobody screwed it up is a miracle,' he says.

Some scenes may have been stylistically challenging, but McAvoy admires the risks his director took and in turn felt comfortable taking some risks on his own. 'Joe made me feel safe; he made me feel like I could play with the style of the piece,' he says. 'We weren't just behaving like the people of 1935, we were going some way towards trying to act like the actors of 1935 and that isn't necessarily a realistic way of behaving. So it was a little bit daring and it could be seen as complete clich', the type of acting we employed, but we went for it with complete passion and a willingness not to be overly sentimental. We've got a romantic tragedy here and we didn't want to sentimentalize it too much, which is a hard thing to do when you've got a romantic tragedy.'

Speaking of romance, McAvoy and Knightley share some steamy love scenes in the film. McAvoy has nothing but respect for his co-star. 'She gave a very sophisticated performance in this film and one that we're not used to seeing from big movie stars,' he says. 'I think the fact that we could have a good laugh with each other more than anything gave us chemistry and that's something that people seem to be going on about. A lot of it's chemistry.'

His close relationship with his director and co-stars was solidified during three weeks of rehearsals before filming. It's a process Wright insisted on, and one that McAvoy is deeply grateful for. 'Joe comes from a theater background and he was brought up in a public theater and I think he really understands what the rehearsal process really has to offer,' he says. 'It was valuable in this case. By the end of the rehearsal process we were galvanized and we were one unit and we felt the same way about the script; we believed in the script.'

The script (adapted from Ian McEwan's novel by Christopher Hampton) was so good in fact, that hardly any improvising was used. 'Very little, but I don't think it was because [Joe Wright] didn't allow it,' he says. 'I don't think any actors tried to because we all loved the script. Why would we want to mess with it' Every now and again we'd go that doesn't work as well as it does on the page and we'd have a wee chat and think about other words we could say. But it was remarkably rare and refreshingly rare.'

A lot of other people seem to be noticing the greatness of the script, as well as the marvelous film on a whole. Atonement has been received exceedingly well by critics and audiences alike, and Oscar-talk is swirling. 'I don't know what its chances are,' McAvoy says of the film's possible award nominations. 'All I know is that we've made something we're incredibly proud of and I'll be lucky to be in something as good as this ever again I think. And I would hope that my pride in my involvement isn't diminished should we not get any nominations.'

Awards or no awards, McAvoy has every right to be proud.