Working Overtime

Date: August 25, 2007 Publication: Telegraph Magazine Country: United Kingdom Author: Craig McLean Excerpt: CONFLICT is the hook in a character that makes him interesting, says James McAvoy, "to make the story come across, to characterise it".

The full article... Whether playing the feckless doctor in Idi Amin's Uganda in Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland or Jane Austen's first love in Becoming Jane – or even as duplicitous Mr Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia – McAvoy has proved adept at bringing characters bursting to multi-faceted life on screen. But McAvoy's latest role, Robbie Turner, the catastrophically wronged hero of Atonement, was different. In the director Joe Wright's adaptation of Ian McEwan's masterpiece, McAvoy portrays the servant's son who falls in love with Cecilia Tallis, the daughter of the owner of the "big house". He subsequently endures a terrible injustice, and then comes World War II. Robbie is noble, decent and heroic. "How do I make that interesting?" McAvoy asks with a laugh as he recalls his early, pre-shoot discussions with Wright. "I was trying to look for conflict and why Robbie maybe looked down his nose at Cecilia, but inside is fighting his love for her. But Joe helped me – Joe was just like, 'He loves her and he's a good guy'." In the three weeks of rehearsals before shooting began last summer, Wright, who directed Pride & Prejudice, guided his leading man over the hurdle. "'Think clearly. Think beautifully', was his advice, 'because Robbie thinks beautifully, and he's a beautiful person inside'," says McAvoy. "So it ended up being actually one of the easiest parts I've had to play. I had incredibly difficult things to convey and feel for an audience to experience. But once I understood that Robbie was a saint, it was a breeze." Barely seven years since he moved to London after graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, McAvoy, 28, has already impressed in a variety of roles: in the aforementioned films; in the television series State of Play (as an eager young reporter) and Shameless (as southern wheeler-dealer Steve); as the wheelchair-bound hellraiser in Inside I'm Dancing; as the geeky University Challenge fanatic in the 1980s-set romantic comedy Starter for 10. His winning of the BAFTA Rising Star Award last year was confirmation that here was a leading man in the making. But even considering these successes, McAvoy is a revelation in Atonement. He plays Robbie Turner with grace, intelligence and strength. "That film was completely rewarding in a way that I've never experienced before, on every level," McAvoy says, almost with a sigh. He describes the shoot, much of which took place in Shropshire in the hot summer of 2006, as idyllic, not least because as a keen climber and hillwalker he was only 90 minutes from the Brecon Beacons. Atonement begins in the pre-war years. In a drowsy, stifling summer on a Home Counties estate, Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan as an adolescent and Romola Garai as a young woman) busies herself and her huge imagination by writing plays and short stories. Her elder sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), recently returned from university, drifts around the grounds and the house in beautiful indolence. Robbie, the son of their housekeeper, had attended Cambridge at the same time as Cecilia, financially supported by the Tallis girls' father. During their studies Cecilia, we learn, had avoided the boy with whom she grew up. But over one tumultuous day, the unspoken love between them blooms into life. Yet almost as soon as the relationship begins, it is undone, with appalling consequences. McAvoy loved working with Joe Wright ("he made every actor who worked on that job a better actor than they were") and he loved the screenplay, by Christopher Hampton. "I felt the script was the perfect script, couldn't fault it. Then I read the book and I felt the book was incredible as well. It engages your intellect as much as it engages your emotion. At the heart of it is a massive wrong, a massive lie that is a crime against humanity, and an amazingly tragic love story. "So that balances with the whole intellectual stuff, and it doesn't become heavy-handed. It's trying to engage the audience's mind in something they feel in their heart." Wright has followed McAvoy's career closely since 2001, after seeing him playing a rent boy in Out in the Open, a Hampstead Theatre production directed by Kathy Burke and one of McAvoy's earliest roles after arriving in London. Wright offered McAvoy parts in his television adaptation Charles II, and in Pride & Prejudice, but McAvoy opted for other jobs at the time, Shameless being one of them. Wright was determined to get his man for Atonement, for several reasons. "It was very important that Robbie was working-class, and I don't mean to belittle James by saying that – he can do any class. But that needed to come through in the performance, and I feel that James has such an incredible inner life. "There are many descriptions of Robbie in the book," the director continues, "but the one that struck me is that he has eyes of optimism. That's the description I had to capture. And James has eyes of optimism. Whatever he's come through he still has those optimistic eyes – probably because of what he's come through." McAvoy and his younger sister, Joy, were raised on a Glasgow housing estate. After his father, a builder, walked out on his mother, a psychiatric nurse, when he was seven, his grandparents became his primary carers. He is extremely close to them and is in contact with his mother, but has nothing to do with his father. After he won the BAFTA award the media located his absent parent. McAvoy didn't read the story, but said afterwards: "I can't really be bothered with it. If I was less secure in myself, I might be more interested. But I know what made me, I know why I am the way I am." His grandparents gave him a strict but loving, morally solid upbringing. He admits that his fearsome work ethic – by the end of this month he will have had five films out here and in the US, including Penelope, a modern fairytale with Christina Ricci – comes from his grandfather, who was a butcher. "My grandad still talks like that: if the work's there you do it. It's the fear of unemployment. And it's also the time of my life – I'm a young guy and it's my job to put in the hours." His grandfather played a more direct role in helping McAvoy with another of his early parts, in the Donmar Warehouse production of Privates on Parade. McAvoy recalls that he was having trouble with his research for the role. Unbeknown to him, his grandfather had served in Malaysia in the immediate post-war years, during the imperial episode in which the play is set. His grandfather posted McAvoy photographs of himself in the jungle with his fellow servicemen. In one photograph his grandfather is the double of McAvoy. "That picture was worth more research than all the reading of books you could ever do," McAvoy says. "You go, 'That's me in that situation. That is my blood in that situation – that guy made me'. That was quite incredible." As a teenager he entertained thoughts of being a missionary, joining the Navy and studying social sciences at university. So that's "heal the world, see the world, or understand the world". "Phew!" he laughs. "Well, I do think I'm curious about the world. I'm somebody who probably doesn't engage all the time. "I'm somebody who sits back and watches a bit more. I don't do it consciously but I do sit back and view a bit more. I do find people really interesting." Towards the end of his school years, the actor-director David Hayman came to give a talk. McAvoy's classmates were largely unimpressed but McAvoy approached Hayman afterwards: if he ever needed anyone to do work experience, make the tea . . . That must have taken gumption. "Yeah, I suppose I've always been a bit cocky. It's a crap word. But I've always liked putting myself out there to try. "And potentially embarrassing yourself is something that I find quite interesting. It's quite good fun to . . . not rub people up the wrong way, but it's quite good fun to be bottled. "I think that's important for an actor – you've got to be prepared to be bad. You've got to be prepared for people to go, 'That's rubbish'. Otherwise you won't do anything interesting. And in life, I like to be scared, I like to go on rollercoasters and things like that." Having moved to London in 2000, McAvoy quickly established himself, landing small but important parts in the television dramas Band of Brothers and White Teeth. In 2001 his role in Privates on Parade caught the eye of the director Sam Mendes. When Mendes later co-produced Starter for 10, he remembered McAvoy. "James was an obvious choice for the role right from the start," he said. "He's got enormous charisma on screen, great comic timing and an everyman quality that made him perfect to play the part." Kevin Macdonald, a Scotsman, recalls that when he first met McAvoy he couldn't believe he was Scottish: until The Last King of Scotland McAvoy had, save the odd minor role early in his career, never used his own accent. "He's so experienced and professional for his age," Macdonald says. "The whole crew were amazed by him – a young guy who's in every scene and who has unfailingly accurate instincts for pretty much every scene. "I don't think he takes anything lightly. And I felt he didn't get the acclaim he deserved for Last King. "Not to take anything away from Forest's performance (Forest Whitaker won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Idi Amin) which was a big, barnstorming performance. But the person who holds the film together is James." As we speak, the rain is bucketing on to the cobbles outside McAvoy's rented flat in the centre of Prague. He has been in the Czech Republic for a month or so, filming Wanted, a fantasy action thriller starring Angelina Jolie. The starts are early (he is picked up each day at 7am), the days are long (the production is working what are known as "French hours", which is industry parlance for a 10-hour continuous day with no lunch break), and the acting is physical and gruelling. And he's in nearly every scene. Plus, he's doing four nights each week in the gym. Furthermore, it's almost 10pm before we start to talk at his kitchen table. On the kitchen worktop, just below the Polaroid picture of him and his wife, the actress Anne-Marie Duff (they fell in love while working on Shameless), are two hefty tubs. One contains Ultimate 4 Sustained Protein Build. The other, Mass Gainer Advanced Muscle Building Formula. He is not all that tall, but he has thickened considerably since I met him in February when he was promoting Becoming Jane. In the intervening months he has been training for Wanted. The protein powders, he says, don't taste too bad: "It's a bit like a chocolate milkshake. But I'm not convinced it's good for you to take that stuff. It has been an education for me, this kind of training. To put on any kind of muscle, if you're not naturally that way, is so hard. And then to keep it! The amount of meat you have to eat is unbelievable." His new-found frame adds to his quiet charisma. He is dressed in comfortable, student-chic black. You wouldn't notice him in a crowd, even though he looms large in front of a movie camera. "When actors are as good-looking as James, it's usually a vote against them," Paul Abbott, the writer of both Shameless and State of Play, says. "The majority only act their looks and are able to get jobs off the back of it. And that can stop them learning how to act. But he calibrated the characters so carefully. And he's one of the few actors who is not just looking to improve his performance – he's looking at how his character can honour the whole production. That's very rare." This single-minded focus and commitment to each project demands everything of him. McAvoy says he finds it impossible to read books while he's filming – "It's about just having no creative energy left to imagine" – and while holed up in Prague has been able to unwind only by immersing himself in box sets of The West Wing. Otherwise, he saves his focus for the substance of his roles. "Any stage directions on scripts, I just cross them out," he says. "You've got to let us have some freedom. These are the words we're speaking and the story is mapped out and we can't change that. But you've got to let us realise that story on the day." He was recently sent the DVD of Starter for 10. On the extras menu he watched a behind-the-scenes interview with the director Tom Vaughan. Vaughan was asked what it was like working with McAvoy. "And he took a big pause," McAvoy smiles, "and he went, 'He's got a lot of ideas! Which sometimes is a total pain in the arse for the director'!" He gives a rueful but defiant grin. "And I think sometimes I can be a pain in the arse for the director. But I do like that!" The day after we meet, Duff is beginning a run as the titular lead in the National Theatre's production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. It's a big role. Four times I try to elicit a comment from McAvoy on the difficulties (I imagine) of being separated from his wife as she prepares for such a huge dramatic undertaking; four times he dodges the question, avoids mentioning any specifics pertaining to their relationship, instead blathering generalities about how difficult it is being on sets, far from home, away from your life. True to form, he is keeping his private life just that. He has three very good friends from Glasgow with whom he remains tight, and when they are not working in different countries, he and Duff largely keep to themselves at their home in Crouch End in north London. He met Duff at a time when, he has said, he was trying to come to terms with his new career. "I was still struggling to find out the truth about myself," he admitted last year. "At that point, I was still lying about my profession, about what I wanted in life." But he credits her with sorting him out, and his BAFTA acceptance speech implied as much: "I would like to thank Anne-Marie, because she taught me to respect life and it took my career to a whole new level." Now, with the Hollywood blockbuster Wanted, McAvoy's career is moving to another level again. Did he decide that he wanted to broaden his range and so instruct his agent to see what kind of action movies might be out there? "No, I've never done that," he replies firmly. "It's only now that I'm thinking I might need to do that. But I'm not even sure whether I will. I think to strategise is to believe that you can have success because you will it. And I think that success and employment is kind of out of your hands a lot of the time. So I leave it to luck a lot of the time, and then choice if I do have a choice." He is still not sure why Wanted's producers picked him as the male lead alongside a Hollywood star of Angelina Jolie's calibre. "But I think by picking me, it already tells the audience that this isn't the usual action movie. Which is quite nice. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I want to see alpha males, it's a good representation of heroes in our world. But I'm tired of seeing it all the time." He auditioned for the film, and screen-tested, "and jumped through hoops". But he doesn't think the director, Timur Bekmambetov, had "to fight and fight for me". "But I do know that he had to express his faith in what I could do and what I could bring to the film. And that's not to say that Universal, the studio funding Wanted, was saying, 'No way in hell', because Universal gave me the part in Atonement just shortly before. But five or six months went past before they came back and said, 'will you do Wanted'?" The hillwalker, rollercoaster-rider and bungy-jumper in McAvoy, meanwhile, is welcoming the chance to do his own stunts. "It is all on wires and Matrix-esque, which is good fun. But actually this film's a lot dirtier than The Matrix – my character hurts himself quite badly in the process." Jolie, he says with an appreciative grin, "is my trainer and my source of pain, she kicks the crap out of me many, many times". But before all those high-octane thrills comes the emotive power of Atonement. As the clock ticks towards midnight in Prague, I ask McAvoy how he will feel if, for his soulful and striking performance as the sainted Robbie, the Academy comes knocking? He laughs drily. "I'll say if an Oscar nomination came round for me, the same as when people said it would do for Last King of Scotland, I would eat my own pants. "I would love it if the film got nominations. But that's not what it's there for. To make a good film is a miracle of collaboration, and to make a good film should be enough. You should be proud." [full-link]Read more •[/full-link]