James McAvoy
I try to keep my life low key, and I don't like going to parties unless they're thrown by a friend of mine, or they're to do with a project I'm in, or it's because I've been nominated for an award.
I like playing a variety of characters. I feel like I've been able to play different kinds of characters - I've done a lot of period pieces - but I've never had to play the same type of character too much.
I don't know why we're not interested in seeing good people. I think we like seeing good people, but only if bad things happen to them. Which is weird, isn't it?
I don't know why I get cast in a lot of period pieces. Stephen Fry told me that I had a face for period, that I look like someone from 1920.
Film sets are a strange place, but an exciting place. I do love my work; I really enjoy going to work. But if you just spend all your time on film sets or even on stage, you can become a Michael Jackson figure, living in your own little universe.
I'm having the life that I kind of hoped I might have one time, you know? I do feel like I have a place here. And, at least, I deserve it, as much as anybody else, hopefully.
I like reading about the past. I'm definitely not a history buff, but I do read a bit of history now and again, and to do that for work is really exciting.
If a scene is three pages long, quite often people break it up and do a page, say 'cut' then move on to the next bit, they do it in cuts. I don't really like doing that; I like to go through it all in one organic run, then give notes afterward. A little bit more like theater.
For me, Charles Xavier is a monk. He's like a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality.
I judge people very quickly.
Our intellect, our awareness, and our consciousness is the most powerful form of life on this planet.Collection: Powerful
I'm probably more dangerous in a car than I am on a motorbike; on a bike I'm very mindful of the fact that if you make a mistake you're dead.Collection: Mistake
The world seemed less scary and I started to like myself a little bit more.Collection: Scary
The script is the most important thing for me. I'm advised that other things are important too, and they are. The director that you'll be working with is hugely important, and the cast that are with you is really important as well. But, for me, the thing that gets my heart excited and really makes me invested in something or not is just the quality of the script.Collection: Heart
Kids audience is a brilliant audience. If you've got an audience of adults standing up and clapping, or you've got an audience of kids standing up and clapping, I know which one I'd choose.Collection: Kids
I think I'm losing my hair finally. And, yeah, that's kind of all I know.Collection: Thinking
That singular uncompromising nature I think is always quite attractive, not just for an actor to play, we're attracted to uncompromising people whether they're nice or not, because they're 3D, they're solid, you can define them, it's not wishy washy.Collection: Nice
A cry-wanking scene is the struggle to live, in a single moment.Collection: Single Mom
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.Collection: Girl
I've been in a few fights and I know what it's like to get punched in the face.Collection: Fighting
I was brought up by my grandparents. So people go, oh, what was that like? That must have been hard. And you go: No, it wasn't.' It was just completely actually normal because the new norm seems to be whatever you make of it, doesn't it?Collection: Grandparent
I was talking to one of my aunties at Christmas and she said she didn’t think it was ever in my nature to go against the grain, that I was always a good boy. I think she was right - I did always want to be good.Collection: Boys
I'm taking probably the biggest risk of my career in playing the part in Filth. If you stop taking risks, then you get bored, or you just keep playing the same part, over and over again. Eventually audiences get bored of that, as well.Collection: Careers
Leading man seems to quite often be an idealized figure.Collection: Men
Marriage is an ongoing thing, man. You continue to work at it. But it's joyful. And joyous. I don't care if people are living without a marriage certificate. It's just about people, in some way, saying to each other, I commit to you. I will help you in this life.Collection: Men
It's nice to be in a movie that hasn't been absolutely slaughtered by the press.Collection: Nice
In a love scene that's really advantageous because you don't have that horrible moment of: "We don't really know what we're supposed to be doing, we just know we're supposed to be snogging and then shagging." Then the director shouts "action" and it's like: "Should I feel her boobs? I don't want to feel her boobs!"Collection: Directors
I wanted to join the navy to get some perspective on the world and explore.Collection: Perspective
I look at the Christian Bale movies, the Batman films, and that shows you that superhero movies don't just have to be about men in tights.Collection: Christian
I want to be like Matt Damon and do a hugely successful thinking-man's action franchise like Bourne.Collection: Successful
I learned something from a string of failed relationships. You don't see a pattern quickly. You see it over time. I learned to stop jumping in at the first sign of attraction. As soon as you're attracted to someone, you go for it - whether or not it's a good idea. Basically, just going out and getting laid.Collection: Jumping
I wanted to be a missionary and work abroad, but girls started to become a bigger part of my life around the time I lost interest in the priesthood.Collection: Girl
The better the script is the more you can commit, but you can only really commit with full confidence when you know the material is as strong as your level of commitment to it and it frees you up.Collection: Strong
It's weird when you're watching yourself in a film - you can't really detach yourself from the experiences you've had that day. You're never watching the film as a proper punter.Collection: Film
Playing somebody who's obsessed. Playing somebody who is transgressing, and who is really crossing moral lines and ethical lines. That's always interesting.Collection: Interesting
It's quite liberating to have a director stand beside the camera and say: "Do this now, and do that now..." It's also a bit sordid but it liberates an actor, I think.Collection: Thinking
[Macbeth] is historically set in a place depicted by Shakespeare as brutal and violent, incredibly superstitious, and that's something that I do believe is Scottish.Collection: Believe