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His performance in Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland achieved him not only critical praise, but several award nominations. Learn 50 facts about James McAvoy.
1. James McAvoy made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's The Near Room.
2. He continued to make mostly television appearances until the early 2000s.
3. His notable television work includes State of Play, Shameless, and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.
4. Besides screen acting, McAvoy has appeared on stage with Three Days of Rain.
5. He did voice work for animated films including Gnomeo & Juliet and Arthur Christmas.
6. Starting in 2003, McAvoy began to build his film resume with Bollywood Queen.
7. He appeared in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a commercial hit.
8. His performance in Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland achieved him not only critical praise, but several award nominations.
9. 2007's critically acclaimed Atonement marked the breakthrough in McAvoy's career.
10. Atonement also earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination.
11. Another big point in the actor's career was starring in Wanted.
12. He is notable for playing Charles Xavier in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class.
13. Received three nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.
14. McAvoy starred in the 2013 crime comedy-drama film Filth for which he won Best Actor in the British Independent Film Awards.
15. McAvoy was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
16. His mother Elizabeth is psychiatric nurse.
17. McAvoy reprised his role as Professor X in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and is scheduled to do so again in X-Men: Apocalypse.
18. His father James McAvoy, Sr., is a builder.
19. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic.
20. His parents divorced when he was seven, which he took hard.
21. McAvoy's mother suffered from poor health and subsequently decided it was best that he live with his maternal grandparents, Mary and butcher James Johnstone, who lived in a terraced council house in the nearby Drumchapel area of Glasgow. His mother lived with them intermittently.
22. He has a sister, Joy.
23. He also has a younger half-brother, Donald.
24. McAvoy has not been in contact with his father since childhood.
25. He attended St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Jordanhill, Glasgow, a Catholic school, and briefly considered joining the Catholic priesthood.
26. In a 2006 interview, McAvoy admitted that part of the reason why he considered becoming a priest was that he wanted to use it as an excuse to travel.
27. During his education, he worked at a local bakery.
28. McAvoy dated Scottish actress Emma Nielsen (stage name Emma King) for six years until 2003.
29. While working on Shameless, McAvoy started a relationship with his character's love interest, Anne-Marie Duff.
30. When they first began dating, McAvoy and Duff agreed not to speak to the press about their relationship.
31. He married Duff on 18 October 2006 in a quiet ceremony.
32. When asked by Ryan Seacrest, during his radio show, if he wished he had waited longer to get married so he could exploit his fame better, McAvoy replied that he had married the woman of his dreams. "The world seemed less scary.... And I started to like myself a little bit more."
33. They have one child together, a son named Brendan.
34. In interviews, the actor has opted not to discuss his son and have not announced their child's birth date, although he has stated "the little man" keeps him up at night.
35. McAvoy leads what has been called a modest life.
36. Prior to marrying Duff, he purchased a second floor flat in North London in 2006 for about £178,000.
37. Also, he and his wife drive a 1990s Nissan Micra that is worth less than £1,000.
38. The couple enjoy a close relationship and rarely leave their flat, choosing to instead read or do sudoku puzzles together.
39. Of this lifestyle, the actor said it is "mundane, and I love it that way".
40. He enjoys fantasy themes which he said started from the age of 11 with The Lord of the Rings.
41. His big interest outside acting and science fiction is football.
42. He is a huge fan of Celtic Football Club, stating that his dream role would be to play Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone.
43. McAvoy considers himself a spiritual person who no longer practices Catholicism.
44. Speaking to Sky News, McAvoy said he believed that British filmmakers belittle and dumb down their productions to please American audiences. "It's like we're patronising them and short changing ourselves," the actor commented.
45. He had previously called 3-D films a "waste of money", accusing film studios of using the effect to get more money out of their theatre audiences.
46. McAvoy has stated that The Goonies is his favourite film.
47. At one point, McAvoy did a "terrifying" BASE jump from the world's tallest hospital building in a bid to help raise money for Ugandan children's charity Retrak, an organisation which assists children on the streets.
48. Additionally, McAvoy is a celebrity supporter of the British Red Cross with whom he travelled to Uganda to raise awareness of the projects there.
49. He had become involved with the charity after shooting The Last King of Scotland there for several months and was shocked by what he saw.
50. In February 2007, he visited northern Uganda and spent four days seeing projects supported by the British Red Cross.
Source: facebook.com/jamesy.mcavoy, Wikipedia.org
