James McAvoy Profile
Posted on Jan 13, 2008 under Actor |
Actor James McAvoy was born on January 1, 1979, in Glasgow, Scotland. James trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and first appeared in 1995 in the film “The Near Room.” He also has starred in the television mini-series “The Band of Brothers” and the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Children of Dune.” He is most known for his role of faun Mr. Tumnus in the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” James is a highly skilled boxer, fencer and rugby player and is also a fire-eater.
Onscreen for nearly a decade at the time he was cast in director Kevin McDonald’s The Last King of Scotland, Glasgow-born actor James McAvoy seemed to many an overnight sensation. The fact is, however, that the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama alumnus already formed the foundation of an enduring career at the time he was charged with holding his own opposite the formidable — and eventually, Oscar-winning — Forest Whitaker.
McAvoy’s parents divorced when here was just seven years old. In the aftermath, he and his mother would go to live with his grandparents in Glasgow’s housing projects, with the youngster’s notable interest in stage and film work eventually leading him to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. At 16, McAvoy made his professional acting debut in the child abuse drama The Near Room, with a role in the long-running British crime drama The Bill following in short order. On the heels of a part in 2001’s Emmy Award-winning WWII mini-series Band of Brothers, McAvoy caught the eye of critics in the small screen adaptation White Teeth before being cast in a pivotal role in the sci-fi effort Children of Dune.
While roles in such UK television dramas as Early Doors and State of Play found McAvoy growing increasingly comfortable on the small screen, feature performances in Bright Young Things, Wimbledon and Inside I’m Dancing brought him to the attention of Hollywood. In 2005, the actor went global in a very big way with a pivotal appearance as Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But it was his Last King role the following year, as a hard-partying doctor who gradually becomes a captive to one of the Twentieth Century’s most notorious dictators, that truly propelled him to international acclaim. With his star-making role in The Last King of Scotland, McAvoy became not only a critical darling, but a serious dramatic talent whose future appeared to hold great things as well, a notion reinforced by his starring performances in no less than four features released stateside in 2007.
