James McAvoy has been blessed by fortune - and kissed by Angelina Jolie

James McAvoy has been blessed by fortune - and kissed by Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie in Wanted

Will Lawrence

12:01AM BST 20 Jun 2008

Rising star James McAvoy talks to Will Lawrence about his crucial career breaks and 'Wanted', the new big-budget action movie he has made with Angelina Jolie

· Watch the trailer for Wanted

If James McAvoy could have any job other than the one he has now, he'd like to be a park ranger. "It's true," he beams. "That, or part of a mountain rescue team. I love being in big old empty spaces. It's being away from other people. I do get that hermitic urge. I'm quite anti-social in some ways, even with my mates."

The 29-year-old Scottish actor, it seems, is something of a reluctant star, which is ironic given the fact that his own star continues to rise.

Over the past few years McAvoy has gone from bit parts in Band of Brothers, Foyle's War and White Teeth to bigger roles in State of Play (which has just been remade as a movie with Russell Crowe) and Shameless, and then on to high-profile cinematic outings inThe Chronicles of Narnia, The Last King of Scotland and last year's Academy Award nominee Atonement.

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His most recent film, meanwhile, thrusts him even further into the limelight: McAvoy is the lead in the energetic action flick, Wanted.

The film is a slick comic-book adaptation, and comes to the screen courtesy of director Timur Bekmambetov, who shot the two most successful films ever released in Russia, Nightwatch (2004) and Daywatch (2006). Wanted is his first American film, and the studio funding the project, Universal, hopes that by blending a hot, stylish director with a band of Hollywood heavyweights (Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman co-star), they might propel the film to the top of the summer box office. For McAvoy, this means an extended spell in the spotlight.

"People ask how I choose my parts - I don't. I might have to start doing it now but it's always just been chance and luck. For example, I auditioned for a massive action film about five or six years ago and I nearly got it. I can't say what it is, but if I'd got it my career would have been very different. I was out of work for a week or two and then The Last King of Scotland came along. How jammy was that?"

So his decision to make Wanted wasn't predicated on the fact that his most recent films have earned him some breathing space? After all, with Starter for 10, The Last King of Scotland, Becoming Jane and Atonement earning a clutch of critical plaudits, surely now's the time to indulge in some mega-buck popcorn fun?

"Well, not everything that I've done in my career has been great," he smiles. "Narnia, for example, was hardly high art. It was a studio blockbuster designed to perform at the box office, a bit like this one. Wanted is a big old action film."

It certainly is. As with his big-budget Russian hits Nightwatch and Daywatch, the director draws inspiration from The Matrix, forging a character plucked from a humdrum existence and hurled into a world of superhuman killers and slow-motion projectiles.

"I guess it does feel a little like The Matrix," concedes McAvoy. "It's slightly super-heroish, has these cool visual effects with bending bullets, and someone coming along and telling a minion, a drone, that the world is not the way he thinks it is. But while I love the first Matrix film, it doesn't have a sense of humour about itself. This one, though, relies on its sense of humour."

The film also relies on the chemistry between McAvoy and Jolie. Wanted is aimed squarely at teenage boys, who will no doubt take pleasure from the duo's on-screen relationship. Jolie trains McAvoy in the wily ways of a superhuman assassin, dominating him often and kissing him once.

"Angelina's one of the biggest stars in the world and she is ridiculously good-looking," says McAvoy, "so, hopefully, young men will put themselves in my shoes, because that's what I aim to do. In almost any part, no matter where it's pitched, my ultimate aim as an actor is to represent the audience."

McAvoy's interest in acting was formed during his time at St Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic school in Glasgow, following a chance meeting with the director David Hayman, who came to his school to deliver a talk. The 15-year-old McAvoy approached the director after class and asked whether he might be involved in any forthcoming productions, in any capacity. He won a role in the gritty child prostitution drama The Near Room.

At the time, he'd spent the last eight years living with his maternal grandparents in Drumchapel, his parents having split up when he was seven years old. While his mother had remained a constant presence, his father had drifted out of the picture.

In Wanted, part of McAvoy's storyline revolves around an absent father, which prompts an obvious connection.

The actor himself, however, is unwilling to explore the link. McAvoy has always retained a certain reticence, insisting that his private life is "boring", and the strategy has worked well thus far - his 2006 marriage to Shameless co-star Anne-Marie Duff, for example, passed with barely a tabloid whisper.

Talk of his own father is quickly dismissed. "It's boring. I don't want to talk about it," he says. "This film is an entertaining diversion. I'm not going to pretend that I dredge the depths of my soul to play the guy. It was Angelina who said to me a couple of times, 'If you make an action film and don't enjoy doing it there's no point in doing it. You can't treat yourself too seriously.' And she's totally right."

If the rumours are to be believed, McAvoy will soon be enjoying himself in Guillermo Del Toro's eagerly awaited adaptation of The Hobbit. The Pan's Labyrinth director says he already has a good idea of who he wants to play Bilbo Baggins, although McAvoy insists that he has not spoken to anyone about the part.

"I promise you, I'm being 100 per cent truthful when I say that it's all just internet nonsense," he says. "Neither Peter Jackson nor Guillermo Del Toro has been in touch."

If the producer and director want to tempt him, the location could prove tantalising bait. The mountain-loving Scot might be persuaded to return to New Zealand, where he shot 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia. After all, out there, he could indulge his passion for hiking - and maybe contemplate his "dream job", that of park ranger?

"It's funny you should mention that," he laughs. "I thought about it when I was last in New Zealand, hiking up a mountain. I'd not taken my pots and pans, so I couldn't eat anything. Luckily I happened on this park ranger who happened to be living a mile down the hill in this little hut. It turned out he was from Birmingham and had to go and live all the way out there just to find a vacancy.

"So I think I'll stick with what I'm doing just now. It seems to be going OK."

'Wanted' is released next Wed

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/3554710/James-McAvoy-has-been-blessed-by-fortune-and-kissed-by-Angelina-Jolie.html

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