James McAvoy

James McAvoy (born 1979) is a BAFTA-winning Scottish actor. He first appeared in film as Kevin Savage in David Hayman's The Near Room in 1995 and then as Anthony Balfour in Gillies MacKinnon's Regeneration in 1997. He later attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, in Glasgow, graduating in 2000. He continued acting with the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), the TV series White Teeth (2002) and the film Bollywood Queen (2002).

McAvoy got his first big international break playing the role of Leto Atreides II in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Children of Dune (adapted from Frank Herbert’s novels) which aired in 2003. In the same year he was on the big screen in Stephen Fry’s directorial debut Bright Young Things, and appeared in BBC television serial State of Play, written by Paul Abbott.

In 2004 he starred as Steve McBride in another Abbott-written drama series, Shameless on Channel 4, for which he was nominated for the British Comedy Award for Best TV Newcomer. He also played Rory O’Shea, an Irish teenager who has muscular dystrophy in Inside I'm Dancing and appeared in the romantic comedy Wimbledon.

In 2005, he played Ben in the Royal Court Theatre's production Breathing Corpses. He had a supporting role in the adaptation of the C.S. Lewis fantasy novel The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as Mr. Tumnus and played Joe Macbeth in a new adaptation of Macbeth on the BBC.

In 2006 he starred alongside Gillian Anderson and Forest Whitaker in an adaptation of Giles Foden’s novel The Last King of Scotland based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s. He took the lead, Brian Jackson, in Starter for Ten (the adaptation of the David Nicholls novel of the same name), and will star alongside Christina Ricci in Penelope. McAvoy has roles in two as-yet unreleased films for 2007- Becoming Jane and Atonement.

McAvoy won the new Mary Selway/Orange Rising Star Award at the 2006 BAFTA Awards.

McAvoy is from Scotstoun, Glasgow. He is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He is married to his Shameless co-star, Anne-Marie Duff.

Selected filmography