James McAvoy was delighted to win the highly coveted role of Robbie Turner in Atonement and admits that he feared it would go to a ‘bigger star.’He needn’t have worried. Both director Joe Wright and co star Keira Knightley have hailed McAvoy as one of the brightest talents to emerge in recent years.'Do you know I think talents like that come around once in a generation, I think he’s an extraordinary actor,' says Knightley. 'I can’t wait to see what he does next. I was there for his screen test and I’ve never seen anything like it, the whole room was silent for about ten minutes after he finished. 'He has the ability to seem like a giant in front of you. He is absolutely amazing and a lovely man. I love it when nice things happen to nice people.'McAvoy is a modest, hugely likable 28-year-old Glaswegian who is clearly delighted to be doing a job he loves. 'I really enjoy my job,' he says. Turner’s blossoming romance with the woman he loves, Cecilia Tallis, played by Keira Knightley. is sabotaged when her younger sister, Briony, misinterprets his actions and wrongly accuses him of a sexual assault. It’s a lie that will have tragic consequences.
For McAvoy, watching the finished film was both a delight he was elated with director Joe Wright’s vision and extremely harrowing.
McAvoy was born in Glasgow and was trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In the UK, he broke through with several notable TV appearances in the cutting edge drama series Shameless, and playing a journalist in State of Play. His films include Wimbledon, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Last King of Scotland, Starter for 10 and Becoming Jane.
Did the finished film surprise you at all?
I expected to be really upset by the film and to cry a lot but I didn’t expect it to be so harrowing. I felt terrible (laughs).
I felt absolutely battered by it the first time I saw it. The second time I saw it I appreciated it and loved it and loved it for all its artistic endeavour and craft.
And the third time I saw I was destroyed again. It’s very strange watching this film for me, because I love my character in this film, I think he’s an amazing person; I wish I was like him.
And it’s very hard for me to see him being destroyed the way he is so it was very hard to watch it, never mind the fact that I watched in front of a thousand people and you just hope to God that they like it.
Was Robbie a hard character to find?
He is a very good person, he is almost unrepresentative of the human species. He is so straight and so good and that was quite difficult for me because most of my acting is based on conflict, most of the characters have survived real conflict that you can examine in these situations and therefore find something interesting and hopefully find truth.
But with him there’s conflict around him, there’s no conflict inside him, until he is damaged severely by one little girl’s lie and then he becomes someone that I’m much more used to playing but for the first half of the film I found it difficult.
I found it difficult in rehearsals to really pinpoint, I kept trying to find what’s angering him here, what emotion is he trying to suppress? And it was nothing, nothing. He is open and he loves and that’s it.
There are many vivid moments in the film but the Dunkirk sequence is particularly poignant. What was that like to film?
It was very poignant. We researched Dunkirk in one way by having a talk with two Dunkirk veterans and they were quite tight lipped actually, they wouldn’t tell us too much other than good stuff good stories, fun stories, about Dunkirk and about the BEF’s (British Expeditionary Force) time before the retreat.
But one of them just before we left just took us aside and said ‘just remember, you can’t know how bad it was.’ And he didn’t explain how bad it was but the fact that he said that was very powerful. And you know, we actors got our lunch and went to sleep in a nice hotel and yet you still get 100th of an idea of what it must have been like and it was devastating. So it’s just incredible to imagine what they must have gone through.
What was it like working with Keira?
It was great, man, really good. She’s probably the biggest star in Britain and one of the biggest stars in the world but she’s a good laugh and she’s hard working and she’s there all the time, before time.
She wants to get better and she wants to be good and she’s brilliant in Pride and Prejudice but I think she’s even better in this. She does a different thing, she doesn’t just play it easy, she plays a woman that the audience might not like and that’s difficult to do and still keep the audience’s interest.
She was exciting to work with. And you know, chemistry, is strange. Much is made of chemistry, it’s strange, in that it’s almost separated from performance, you know, ‘the acting was superb and the chemistry was palpable.’ But you know, it’s the same thing. She’s a good actress and that’s when the chemistry is there.
Your career has been going very well. Is it more than you dared hope for?
It’s been good. I really enjoy my job. And I feel really lucky because there aren’t that many people that are allowed to do this job and there’s not that many people that are allowed to go up for the same part.
And you go into a room and you see the same faces all the time when you are auditioning and you think, ****** hell! It’s a really closed set, it’s really small minded and quite, not elitist, but if you are allowed in you are very lucky. I’m very grateful.
I was slightly surprised when I got this job (on Atonement) because I thought ‘this is going to go to some big star’ and if there isn’t a big enough British star who is right for it or who wants to do it, it will go to an American. Because Keira is not the lead role, she can’t carry this film. I thought it would be some American or Jude Law, someone like that.
And the fact that I’ve been allowed to do this, the fact that Working Title have allowed me, Universal Studios, is not to be overlooked, they’ve been brave and forward thinking and I’m really grateful to them.
It’s a bit of a risk for them, I’ve never been in a film this big and also all these films I have coming out, whether I’m good in them or not, they don’t know, they’ve not seen them.
What do you like about acting?
It’s always changing. Even if the film is shit it will be over in two and a half months and there will be something new coming up and you will be telling a different story, learning a different set of skills, learning about a different time in history, a different kind of person and usually discovering a different part of yourself as well.
And also, the place you get to go, the people you meet, it’s an interesting job all the time. Also, I don’t just think that actors are ******* (wankers) that skive. I think it’s hard work and I really enjoy the feeling of working hard.
I mean, it can be a skive, I won’t deny that (laughs). It’s only as bankrupt of morals as you can make and it can be full of goodness, you can create something that people need to see if you care for it, if you really nurture it.
How do you deal with the celebrity side of the job?
I don’t know, it’s not been too bad. I’ve been left alone. I don’t think I’m glamorous enough to get the kind of shit that somebody like Keira does. It’s a ******* nightmare, she is the most photographed woman in the world it seems. I don’t think I’m glamorous enough to warrant that kind of attention.
The funniest thing is one of the military guys (working as an adviser on Atonement) gave me his card and said ‘look, if you ever need a bodyguard..’ And I said ‘look, I don’t think my profile is high enough for me to need that kind of shit..’ But he goes ‘you will..’ But hopefully I’m never going to need that.
I don’t go to all the free parties, I think if you do you are using the media to do something which is to increase your personal profile, not promote the film, and then rightly they have got a claim on you, I think, because they go ‘look, it’s a two way street..’ If you don’t turn up for the opening of a letter you seem to get left alone, which is fine by me.
Atonement is released on DVD 4th February.