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.
— James McAvoy
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 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.
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.
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.
Until I'm on the set of a film, to me it's still not for real.
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.
Passing my motorcycle theory test gave me a disproportionate feeling of greatness.
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've never worked as hard as when I was at drama school. It's the most professional environment I've ever been in.
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.
I want to be like Matt Damon and do a hugely successful thinking-man's action franchise like 'Bourne.'
I don't mind playing somebody who's not likable, or makes the audience feel slightly conflicted.
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 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 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?
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 am a nerd, but I don't dive head-first into any fiefdom of nerdiness, except for maybe 'Star Trek.'
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 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!'
Shooting films in Britain is always difficult, because we've never got enough money to make them.
Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.
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.
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.
I'd like to have stayed in the Scouts beyond the age of 12.
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.
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 play football once or twice a week. I eat pretty healthy. I'm in fairly good shape most of the time.
I judge people very quickly.
For me, Charles Xavier is a monk. He's like a selfless, egoless almost sexless force for the betterment of humanity and mortality.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
When I was 15 or 16 - I slept really well then. Now I sleep on a bed of anxiety-tipped nails.
Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche.
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.
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.
I think fear is one of the natural states of most actors, to be honest.
I've spent a long time giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tired of it.
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.
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.
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.
