I take a lot of pride in being myself. I'm comfortable with who I am.
James McAvoy
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.
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 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 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've cried a lot because of women. I cry a lot, as a person.
Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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've spent a long time giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tired of it.
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.
A story about my life would be utterly dull.
Every time I do a movie, especially an animated movie, I just seem to scream and shout and hyperventilate for money.
I play football once or twice a week. I eat pretty healthy. I'm in fairly good shape most of the time.
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'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 want to be like Matt Damon and do a hugely successful thinking-man's action franchise like 'Bourne.'
I am a nerd, but I don't dive head-first into any fiefdom of nerdiness, except for maybe 'Star Trek.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Until I'm on the set of a film, to me it's still not for real.
That's the main thing that attracts me - characters who have big journeys. I like playing those people.
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.
I've never worked as hard as when I was at drama school. It's the most professional environment I've ever been in.
When I was 15 or 16 - I slept really well then. Now I sleep on a bed of anxiety-tipped nails.
I'd like to have stayed in the Scouts beyond the age of 12.
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.
Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche.
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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.
I don't mind playing somebody who's not likable, or makes the audience feel slightly conflicted.
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.
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.
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'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.
