James McAvoy & Wanted

Wanted

Wesley (McAvoy), 25-year-lod, a slacker who hates his life with good reason, because it sucks.

At work, his ballbuster of a boss lives to torment him in front of his fellow cubedwelling drones. Back home, his skeezy gilfriend is a sexual magnet for everyne except him, including Wesley's supposed best friend. No wonder this loser is on his 10th prescription for panic attack pills, which he downs like candy between cardboard meals of vegan tofu wraps.

Wesley's pathetic excuse for an existence might just as well come to an end and save him a lifetime of prolonged misery.

Fortunately for Wesley, his life is over his old one, anyway and all because of a girl. Enter hot Fox (Jolie), who crashes into Wesley on the business end of a smoking gun. Seems Wesley's long-lost and mostly forgotten dad was killed while working for the Fraternitya centuries-old league of supersensory trained assassins pledged to carry out the unbreakable orders of fate. Their motto: kill one, save a thousand.

Now it's Wesley's turn to follow in his father's footsteps and release the cages wolf that's always lurked inside of him. Killing is in Wesley's blood, and he trins under Fox and a motley-but-lethal crew that includes the Fraternity's enigmatic leader, Sloan (Freeman). The neophyte is forcefully pummeled into developing lightning-quick reflexes and superhuman agility. No one said becoming an assassin would be easy.

The former slacker is reborn as the golden boy of the Fraternity and Wesley starts to relish his new life, even exacting some best-served-cold revenge on tormentors past. But soon, the sweet taste of power sours when he realized that the intensions of his deadly associates aren't as noble as first presented. As he wavers between newfound heroism and soul-killing vengeance, Wesley will come to learn what no one either cold-blooded father nor steaming-hot assassin could ever teach him: He alone controls his destiny.

James McAvoy is a 'Wanted' assassin
By ETHAN SACKS

The scene in "Wanted" called for James McAvoy to run past a car moving 30 miles an hour and jump on the hood - a "bonnet" as he calls it in his Glasgow brogue.

McAvoy then had to leap off as the car braked and hit the ground without breaking stride just as a truck smashes into the front of the car.

It sounds like a job for a seasoned stuntman, not an actor whose meteoric rise in the past two years has been based on Oscar-caliber dramas like 2006's "The Last King of Scotland" and last year's "Atonement." The McAvoy moviegoers have come to know is a lover, not a fighter.

"That was all me," says the 29-year-old actor. "It was all no wires, no crash mats - I was padded up beyond belief - but that was all me. And I couldn't really believe that they were letting me do it."

Scotland's biggest acting export since Ewan McGregor sure seems to enjoy putting some pop into a summer popcorn flick for a change. He says he even relished the grueling daily workouts during the 4%BD -month shoot that packed 22 pounds of extra muscle on his slim frame - even if it did cause occasional vomiting.

"Wanted," which opens Friday and co-stars Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, follows Wesley Gibson (McAvoy), a twentysomething office drone stuck in a prosaic job and a Prozac world. Lorded over by his tyrannical boss and a domineering girlfriend - who he knows is sleeping with his best friend - Wesley is in dire need of a change.

In other words, he's a lot like the average guy sitting in the audience.

That change comes in the form of Fox (Jolie), a beautiful killer who whisks him through a hail of bullets and into a secret society of assassins. Turns out Wesley is special: He's the son of a former member of the so-called Fraternity, with an inherited ability to fire guns at a prodigious clip.

Maybe he's a little different than your typical moviegoer, after all.

"I think that this role is an important one for the development of artistic integrity in your nation - I'm only joking," says McAvoy.

"I saw this action movie, and this particular role in this action movie, as this opportunity ...just to kind of help normal people get represented in cool action movies."

Judging from Internet rumors that he's been cast in "The Hobbit," the prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" - which McAvoy flatly denies - "Wanted" won't be the last cool action movie he gets to do.

"He has proven his chops in the art-house world, and now he's trying to [get] into the major leagues of Hollywood action," says Gitesh Pandya, founder of BoxOfficeGuru.com, a film industry site. "A lot of people are looking at 'Wanted' as a litmus test for him."

When writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones created the comic-book series that "Wanted" is based on, they based the main character's look on Eminem. It's no accident - they had envisioned their comic becoming a movie and figured they'd campaign for their dream casting.

That was before Millar first saw his fellow Glasgowegian hit the industry with all guns blazing.

"Oh, he's perfect," says Millar. "We're producers on the film, too, and I remember being concerned when I heard some of the names bandied around before James was cast. These were all perfectly good actors, but too cool and buff to pull off the Everyman quality the character requires."

For a so-called Everyman, McAvoy has enjoyed a very extraordinary run. Having come from a decade of supporting roles in TV shows on the other side of the Pond, he rocketed to success after a series of big-time roles that began with 2005's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," playing Mr. Tumnus, the faun.

And not many regular guys can boast getting the chance to kiss the likes of Jolie, Anne Hathaway (in 2007's "Becoming Jane") and Kiera Knightley ("Atonement") - and get paid for it. Even though McAvoy claims it's not all it's cracked up to be.

"It's bloody nerve-wracking and just fraught with professional anxiety ... and worry about the smell of your breath after eating garlicky spaghetti," McAvoy says.

"That's the sad reality of a scene like that - they're never sexy, intimate or romantic."

McAvoy remains, he insists, the same regular guy from Glasgow that grew up watching movies like "The Goonies" and "Back to the Future" with his grandparents. He's driven the same Nissan for the past 10 years. He prefers a night in with his wife, actress Anne-Marie Duff, who stars with him in the upcoming "The Last Station" to a red-carpet party.

To put it bluntly, he's not the first person you'd expect to be leaping off the "bonnet" of a car at 30 miles an hour.

"In a hard R-rated movie, it was quite nice to have the person who's going to be the bringer of so much carnage, violence and death to be slightly questionable at the beginning," says McAvoy.

"It's quite fun, I think, to [have] the actor who they cast to play that character be somebody you wouldn't believe could do any of that so well."

James McAvoy
James McAvoy was born in the Scotstoun area of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1979 and is a graduate of the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In his short career, he has tested himself with a wide variety of work, on stage, television and film, and is regarded as one of the U.K.'s most exciting acting talents.

Although he cut his teeth with small parts in high-profile projects like the World War I drama Regeneration (alongside Jonathan Pryce and Dougray Scott) and the hugely successful HBO series Band of Brothers (produced by Tom Hands and Steven Spielberg), McAvoy first came to prominence in the U.K. with the role of Josh in the Channel 4 adaptation of Zadie Smith's populor novel "White Teeth", with Geraldine James, John Simm and Naomie Harris. This brought McAvoy to the attention of Hollywood and, in 2002, he was cast as Leto Atreides Ⅱ in the Emmy Award-winning massive hit miniseries Children of Dune, directed by Greg Yaitanes and co-starring Susan Sarandon and Steven Berkoff.

As McAvoy's body of work grew, the roles being offered to him grew more and more significant, and he soon found himself playing the role of Dan Foster in the BAFTA-winning BBC One political-drama series State of Play, with Bill Nighy, John Simm and Kelly Macdonald. Written by Paul Abbott and directed by David Yates, the series ran in the U.K. in autumn 2003 and on BBC America in 2004 and became one of the most successful U.K. television exports of recent years.

While impressing on the small screen, McAvoy also proved to be a hit on the big screen, when Stephen Fry's much anticipated comedy Bright Young Things was released in October 2004, The film had an all-star international cast, including Emily Mortimer, Dan Aykroyd, Peter O'Toole, Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant and many more. Bright Young Things was released in the U.S. in August 2005.

McAvoy's popularity in the U.K. grew with his portrayal of the car thief Steve in the BAFTA-winning Channel 4 series Shameless, which began in the U.K. in early 2004. Once again written by Paul Abbott, the series tells the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of a family living on a Manchester council estate. McAvoy was nominated in the Best Comedy Newcomer category at the 2004 British Comedy Awards for his performance.

In 2004, McAvoy took his first feature film lead role in Inside I'm Dancing (U.S. title: Rory O'Shea Was Here). Directed by Damien O'Donnell and co-starring Romola Garai, the film tells the story of Rory, a young Irishman with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, whi leads his cerebral palsy-stricken friend in a fight for physical and emotional freedom. The film received great critical acclaim, with McAvoy's performance being expecially noted; he received a nomination in the British Actor of the Year category at the 2005 London Film Critics' Circle Awards. The film was released in the United States in February 2005.

December of 2005 saw the long-awaited arrival of Disney's big-budget the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, filmed in New Zealand over the second half of 2004. McAvoy played Mr. Tumnus the Faun in this adaptation of the C.S. Lewis classic, directed by Andrew Adamson and co-starring Tilda Swinton. The film became a massive international success and is one of the 20 highest grossing films of all time. McAvoy won the Rising Star Award at the 2006 BAFTAs, and he was nominated in British Actor of the year in a Supporting Role at the 2006 London Film Critics' Circle Awords for his performance.

In the summer of 2005, James traveled to Uganda to take on the lead role in The Last King of Scotland, directed by the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning Kevin Macdonald. The film tells the story of Nicholos Garrigan, a Scottish doctor on a Ugandan medical mission, who becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures, Idi Amin, played by Forest Whitaker. McAvoy was nominated for a BAFTA, a European Film Award, a BIFA and a London Film Critic's Circle Award for his performance.

Upon returning to the U.K., McAvoy started work on his lead role in the adaptation of the hugely popular David Nicholls book, "Starter for 10", for HBO Films. The film was directed by Tom vaughan and produced by Tom Hanks. The film was released in the U.K. in October 2006 and premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival before a February 2007 U.S. release.

The actor's next project was Penelope, directed by Mark Palansky and co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Christina Ricci and Richard E. Grant. McAvoy played a man called upon to same a young woman cursed with the snout of a pig. Penelope began filming in London in February 2006 and premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival ahead of a February 2008 U.S. release.


In April 2006, the ever-busy McAvoy moved to Dublin to start work on Becoming Jane, direacted by Julian Jarrold and co-starring Dame Maggie Smith and Julie Walters. McAvoy played the brilliant and roguish Irishman Tom Lefroy, whose affair with Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) inspired her to write "Pride and Prejudice". The film was released in the U.K. in March 2007 and in the U.S. in August 2007.

From Dublin, McAvoy returned immediately to the U.K. to begin work on Atonement. An adaptation of the popular lan McEwan novel, the movie is directed by Joe Wright and co-stars Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethym and Romola Garai. McAvoy played Robbie Turner, a Cambridge graduate falsely accused of rape, who goes on to fight in World War Ⅱ with the accusation hanging over him. Atonement had its world premiere at the 2007 Venice Film Festival ahead of the September 2007 U.K. and December 2007 U.S. releases. McAvoy received Golden Globe and BAFTA Best Actor nominations and won awards from the London Film Critics' Circle, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the U.K. Regional Critics for the role.

In April 2008 James moved to Germany to begin filming The Last Station, a historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things; the film is directed by Michael Hoffman.