Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by James McAvoy
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish actor James McAvoy.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
I've played a lot of very posh, sort of noble or aristocratic English people, which is nothing like what I am, so I feel that there is quite a lot distance there and have played a little bit far away from myself.
As I get older, I want to do more films for kids because they're the best audience around. Just putting a smile on a kid's face is the best thing.
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.
The funny thing is, I've never really hurt myself in an action movie. I've done 'Wanted,' 'X-Men,' 'Welcome To The Punch,' even 'Trance' to a certain extent has little bits of action and stuff, but I've never really hurt myself at all - not even like a sprained ankle.
I think the most romantic thing you can do is just turn up. Turn up when it's difficult for you. Travel halfway around the world or just up the road. Whatever it is, just be there.
I always have a beard between jobs. I just let it grow until they pay me to shave it. People are quite surprised it's ginger. Sometimes they ask me if dye my hair and I always say 'Wow, no!' I'm 'trans-ginger.'
I kind of embarked on a fruitless search to find information about my character, Frederick Aiken. And it was fruitless, unfortunately, because there's so little about him.
I like playing sport, and I like doing physical stuff. I like hiking and I like climbing and I like playing sport. I do a lot. But I don't like the term 'exercising.' I feel like with sport, you're playing games. But with exercise, you're literally just trying to stop yourself from dying too young. It's weird.
When I was 15 or 16 - I slept really well then. Now I sleep on a bed of anxiety-tipped nails.
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.
I've done enough for a while and people get fed up of seeing you, but apart from that, although I'm young, I need a bit of rest. You could say I have become a house husband. It's not a new man thing, it's just largely a boring man who doesn't mind staying in the house thing.
A story about my life would be utterly dull.
I'd like to keep work work and life life. It means you've got your life to come back to, somewhere to come home to at night that isn't invaded by your day.
I remember that it was never that difficult for me to get a director to look up and pay attention to me. Mind you, I don't know if that's necessarily charm. But I've played roles where my character has to be charming and I've found it quite easy to do. I think some of it is in my bones, but some of it is more deliberate.
I wanted to be a doctor at one point and I also wanted to be a pilot. I think if you grow up in a dodgy area, reality often beats down those ambitions as you get older. But with me that never really happened.
When I started acting, I thought if I got one or two jobs a year I'd be lucky. So yeah, my career has gone so much farther than I ever suspected it would, and as such I feel lucky for everything I get. I feel thankful and grateful.
My favorite name of a fandom is Benedict Cumberbatch's - 'the Cumberbatches' is just the best name.
I'm instinctively very suspicious and guarded, and I try to counteract it so much. I find reason allows you to be open, and my only sort of ambition in life is to try and be as open as possible.
I don't know if anybody's ever ready for another award season. It's kind of like Christmas.
I also really liked playing Mr. Tumnus in 'Narnia'. I got to play my favorite character in children's literature, which I loved. You don't get the chance to do that in other jobs.
Since my worldview has expanded, I don't consider myself working class anymore, and I'm attracted to playing characters who go through a similar evolution.
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 do Facebook and I don't do Twitter, and already I notice that, with some of my friends, there's a whole sphere of conversation that I'm completely on the outside of, and that's my choice. But, to a greater extent, that's what the whole of life is like.
Nobody can be whatever they want to be. No kid can do whatever they want to do. It's a total lie. But they have the right to try and do whatever they want to do. That's their right, to aim to do whatever they want to do.
People come up to me and they're usually nice, but as it goes on you realise that some people aren't nice. Some people are not nice at all.
Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.
I always believed that I never wanted to be an actor. I only did it because I was allowed to do it and I had to do something.
That's the main thing that attracts me - characters who have big journeys. I like playing those people.
I really liked 'Starter For Ten' because I grew up watching 1980s teen films like 'St. Elmo's Fire' and 'The Breakfast Club' and I've always wanted to play the underdog lead hero in a 1980s-inspired film.
I decided to give up the idea of being a priest before I decided I wanted to be an actor. I considered it for a couple of weeks, really. I'm a young Catholic, do you know what I mean. You're going to consider it.
As an actor sometimes you can be a bit emotional and forceful, and that's not always the way to be.
I considered becoming a priest very seriously. I wanted to travel the world. By the time I turned 16, I realized I was only in it for selfish reasons. And, more importantly, I didn't want to sacrifice the ladies!
I did 'Narnia' because it was a good opportunity and all that, but really? I wanted to play Mr. Tumnus because he's my favourite children's character. That was awesome.
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.'
I want to be like Matt Damon and do a hugely successful thinking-man's action franchise like 'Bourne.'
No movie has ever got enough time. It doesn't matter how much money you've got, and it doesn't matter how much money you've not got. You never finish on time. You're always up against it and you're always working up until the end.
I think my recognizability ebbs and flows. I don't lead a particularly celebrity lifestyle or anything like that. I don't go to showbiz parties or red-carpet events, so it all depends on whether I've got a film out. I've not been very visible in the last year or so and as a result hardly anyone stops me in the street.
I love going to art galleries. The Tate Modern is one of my favourite things to do. But I don't invest in the history of it and I don't read up on it. I am a guy who would buy a print rather than buy an original.
Girls didn't really take much interest in me until I was about 14. But I knew how to talk to them very quickly. What I figured out - that my friends didn't - was you have to talk to women like you're not constantly trying to have sex with them. That seemed to work.
I did undergo hypnotherapy, and it didn't work! The guy couldn't put me under. I was very disappointed. I was very keen to be suggested, to have somebody tell me to run naked or cluck like a chicken or whatever, but it didn't work for me, I'm afraid.
One of the weird things about Hollywood is we're all imposters; we're all just glammed up.
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.
When you can see kids smiling, that's one of the best things. That's why I did 'Narnia.'
I play football once or twice a week. I eat pretty healthy. I'm in fairly good shape most of the time.
I've cried a lot because of women. I cry a lot, as a person.
Distance is a bad excuse for not having a good relationship with somebody. It's the determination to keep it going or let it fall by the wayside; that's the real reason that the relationships continue.
Because technically actors are just public servants really. They just tell stories because people need to be told stories. That's all it is. And yet we get treated as though we're important.
Our intellect, our awareness, and our consciousness is the most powerful form of life on this planet. It's totally worthwhile. If our animal instincts stopped, we would die. We don't think about it, but if your consciousness were responsible for all of your bodily functions, you would die.
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?
At the heart of every really good Christmas movie is the threat, I suppose, to Christmas. Something is wrong with Christmas, in all of these movies. In 'The Polar Express,' there's a kid that doesn't really believe, and that's the threat to Christmas. In 'Santa Claus: The Movie,' jealousy and greed are threatening to overrun his Christmas.
I don't think I'm ever going to get to the point where people run across a freeway to take a picture of me. I really don't see it getting to that level of hysteria unless I have an affair with the Queen of Sweden or something like that.
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.
I love Christmas. I never used to. I didn't hate it, but I could take it or leave it. But, as I got to the age of 25 or 26, Christmas became quite a big deal, and I love it now. I love the food, and I love sharing time with people.
My grandmother would take me to the cinema quite a lot. She'd take me with her and sometimes she'd sneak my sister in, and then we'd sometimes just sit and watch the movie again.
If my career isn't going that well, I'd rather it flounder than desperately trying to show up on red carpets: 'I'm for hire! Remember me!'
I take a lot of pride in being myself. I'm comfortable with who I am.
I like cooking, but I don't think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you've just walked in off the street and you've got no experience, to whether you're the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It's really, really intense.
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.
'St. Elmo's Fire' is one of my favorite films. I like the storytelling of those teenage American films. You don't get that now. Teenage American movies are all about sick jokes, puking a lot, arse jokes.
Next year, if no one gives me any work, that's fine. I'm not going to do well anyway. I'm not an actor, I'm just exploiting this industry.
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