Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by James McAvoy - Page 2

I like reading about the past. I'm definitely not a history buff, but I do read a bit of history now and again, and to do that for work is really exciting.

I generally get challenged; I haven't been typecast, which is really, really, nice. It's not something that every actor gets, really. It's luxury. Most actors are capable of it, but they aren't afforded the opportunity to express their variety.

Basically, every character I've ever played, I've based entirely on internal conflict. And I love doing that, because I think it's very human.

If a scene is three pages long, quite often people break it up and do a page, say 'cut' then move on to the next bit, they do it in cuts. I don't really like doing that; I like to go through it all in one organic run, then give notes afterward. A little bit more like theater.

There's something about Michael J. Fox that I loved when he did all the '80s stuff. His way of performing all the physicality, which is why it's so tragic now, but the way he used his body so much as well, I loved.

I've spent a long time giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tired of it.

I do find it strange, doing magazine shoots. Photographers always go, 'Why don't you like to have your picture taken? That's what you do for a living anyway. Just pretend you're acting. It's the same thing!'

The minute you start to strategize too much, the more you start to think you're in control of your own fate. And you're not, really.

Fear is really powerful; it's really useful to me.

I think fear is one of the natural states of most actors, to be honest.

I'm having the life that I kind of hoped I might have one time, you know? I do feel like I have a place here. And, at least, I deserve it, as much as anybody else, hopefully.

I am a nerd, but I don't dive head-first into any fiefdom of nerdiness, except for maybe 'Star Trek.'

I'd like to have stayed in the Scouts beyond the age of 12.

I actually went to drama school at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama in Glasgow, so I stayed in my home town the whole time. However, I see more of my friends now than I did then. It's strange.

I'm 5 foot 7, and I've got pasty white skin. I don't think I'm ugly, don't get me wrong, but I'm not your classic lead man, Brad Pitt guy.

Shooting films in Britain is always difficult, because we've never got enough money to make them.

Film sets are a strange place, but an exciting place. I do love my work; I really enjoy going to work. But if you just spend all your time on film sets or even on stage, you can become a Michael Jackson figure, living in your own little universe.

Until I'm on the set of a film, to me it's still not for real.

I don't know why I get cast in a lot of period pieces. Stephen Fry told me that I had a face for period, that I look like someone from 1920.

I still take work if I think it's good. If I like the script, I'll do it. If I don't, I won't.

Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche.

Every time I do a movie, especially an animated movie, I just seem to scream and shout and hyperventilate for money.

I don't really... go to 'the opening of an envelope.' I don't really turn up to all the events, you know what I mean? If I'm involved, I'll go, and if there's a good friend who needs support, I'll go, but otherwise... I don't go. I'm probably just a bit like my grandparents; I like staying in.

For me, Charles Xavier is a monk. He's like a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality.

Passing my motorcycle theory test gave me a disproportionate feeling of greatness.

If you don't have the good fortune to work a lot then you take any job you get offered, whether it's a good job, fun job, a bad job, horrible job, whatever, you just take what you need to take. But I'm lucky in that - at the moment anyway and hopefully forever, but who knows - I get the chance to pick jobs for the kick of it and the fun.

I don't want to be all worthy about it, but I don't do red carpets, I don't do events and I don't accept freebies that much.

I've never worked as hard as when I was at drama school. It's the most professional environment I've ever been in.

I've seen beautiful actresses get spat at or just someone trying to get a rise out of them so they can get an extra hundred bucks for a photo. It's really rough.

I judge people very quickly.

I don't mind playing somebody who's not likable, or makes the audience feel slightly conflicted.

A cry-wanking scene is the struggle to live, in a single moment.

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.

Our intellect, our awareness, and our consciousness is the most powerful form of life on this planet.

The world seemed less scary and I started to like myself a little bit more.

It's weird when you're watching yourself in a film - you can't really detach yourself from the experiences you've had that day. You're never watching the film as a proper punter.

It's quite liberating to have a director stand beside the camera and say: "Do this now, and do that now..." It's also a bit sordid but it liberates an actor, I think.

We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't.

I'm taking probably the biggest risk of my career in playing the part in Filth. If you stop taking risks, then you get bored, or you just keep playing the same part, over and over again. Eventually audiences get bored of that, as well.

I wanted to join the navy to get some perspective on the world and explore.

I think I'm losing my hair finally. And, yeah, that's kind of all I know.

I've been in a few fights and I know what it's like to get punched in the face.

The better the script is the more you can commit, but you can only really commit with full confidence when you know the material is as strong as your level of commitment to it and it frees you up.

I wanted to be a missionary and work abroad, but girls started to become a bigger part of my life around the time I lost interest in the priesthood.

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?

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 want to be like Matt Damon and do a hugely successful thinking-man's action franchise like Bourne.

Playing somebody who's obsessed. Playing somebody who is transgressing, and who is really crossing moral lines and ethical lines. That's always interesting.

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.

[Macbeth] is historically set in a place depicted by Shakespeare as brutal and violent, incredibly superstitious, and that's something that I do believe is Scottish.

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.

In a love scene that's really advantageous because you don't have that horrible moment of: "We don't really know what we're supposed to be doing, we just know we're supposed to be snogging and then shagging." Then the director shouts "action" and it's like: "Should I feel her boobs? I don't want to feel her boobs!"

Leading man seems to quite often be an idealized figure.

The script is the most important thing for me. I'm advised that other things are important too, and they are. The director that you'll be working with is hugely important, and the cast that are with you is really important as well. But, for me, the thing that gets my heart excited and really makes me invested in something or not is just the quality of the script.

Kids audience is a brilliant audience. If you've got an audience of adults standing up and clapping, or you've got an audience of kids standing up and clapping, I know which one I'd choose.

It's nice to be in a movie that hasn't been absolutely slaughtered by the press.

That singular uncompromising nature I think is always quite attractive, not just for an actor to play, we're attracted to uncompromising people whether they're nice or not, because they're 3D, they're solid, you can define them, it's not wishy washy.

I learned something from a string of failed relationships. You don't see a pattern quickly. You see it over time. I learned to stop jumping in at the first sign of attraction. As soon as you're attracted to someone, you go for it - whether or not it's a good idea. Basically, just going out and getting laid.