James McAvoy: The Movieline Interview

This isn't your first time playing a witness to history -- a kind of young idealist in thrall to a larger-than-life myth. What about this theme intrigues you enough to revisit it?

I don't think the guy in Last King of Scotland is an idealist. I think he's selfish as hell.

I guess I mean he's absorbed in a legend and an institution that turns out to be a fraud -- in a different way than Tolstoy's, of course.

I would say that Valentin is an idealist sucked in because of the power of that great man. Valentin represents Russia and how they feel about Tolstoy. I think that Nicholas Garrigan is sucked in because it appealed to his sense of ego. It's not necessarily because Amin was so great. In that, Garrigan represented the West -- the young, emerging West as a kind of post-colonial power. You know? That patronizing quality. He was there to fuck and to take away. I don't think he's a bad person; don't get me wrong. I just think he was entitled. He came from an entitled society [into] a place where people aren't entitled.

And here, Valentin's first encounter with Tolstoy is staged almost like a ballet -- like Valentin's meeting God or something. Can you walk me through nailing that with Christopher Plummer?

I tried to stay away from him as much as possible until that scene. That was the first scene we shot together; nothing else was shot in order, so it was just luck, really. I tried to not really talk to him, because I wanted to build up that myth that Christopher Plummer -- Baron Von Tolstoy! -- was coming into the room at any minute. I was really getting excited about it for a week through rehearsals. I tried to ignore him as much as possible. I think he got annoyed with me, like, "What the fuck is this kid doing?" I just wanted to keep it fresh. Which is silly, because I'm not a Method actor. I just wanted it to be vital and new. So I was so excited when I finally got to talk to him. It made all that love for him easy to access. I'd been manufacturing it for a week.

But I do that in everything I do: I try to love the actor I'm working with. Even if, in hindsight, I thought, "I don't know if they were very good," I don't ever consider that when I'm working with them. I try to love everything they do and become fascinated with them. They're everything I have; I have nothing else. Everything you need is in the other actor or in the room. I don't know. I shouldn't be talking shit.

Sure, but let's take Helen Mirren, who essentially devours that room in many of her scenes here. What do you with an actor and a character like that?

You absorb it. Also, you tell the story. If the story's about her, then you hand it over to her. If the story is about me, then I take it over. You just let the story fall out the way it should and not get in the way. I think. [Pause] But I don't really think of it in terms of, "How do I deal with this energy?" Hopefully you just never stop that flow of energy. That's the big thing. You must give energy to other actors. Some actors don't do it, and it's really fucking annoying because you don't even see it on camera.

How do you mean?

On-screen, people are looking at each other. But quite often actors will look away instead of looking at you. That connection is uncomfortable to them, I guess. It's like, "Perhaps you reacting to me will put me off my plan to get everything the way I wanted to get it. Maybe I was looking at you and you reacted really truthfully, and that puts me off, and I forgot to do that thing that I really wanted to get in the fucking take." I don't know why they do that! But I feel it's important to give energy to each other. Most actors do.

I'd love to run down this list of casting rumors you've spent the last week refuting, but I'd rather know your reaction to them. Does all this speculation ever frustrate you?

Well, it's nice to think your name carries enough weight to benefit them if they use it while fabricating stuff. You know what I mean? But they're all balls. They're all nonsense. None of it's true. I'm With Cancer -- I am doing that one. That one's true. But the Ian Fleming thing? I read it, I really liked it, never spoke to a producer about it, never attached myself to it. Then somebody said I did, which is a little bit naughty, I think. Then the Hobbit thing? Not true. It's weird to be perceived as something other than that which you are. The weird thing is that if you read something that says, "James McAvoy likes coffee instead of tea"? It's not a big deal. It doesn't really matter. But it's not bloody true. It's weird that not only do people have an image of you that's not what you are, they put it out there as though what they say is true, without any way to prove it.

And it only gets worse as the news cycle accelerates. Does it make you cynical, or turn you off to the process?

I got absolutely battered by a newspaper back home about a week ago, and it was completely made up. Just a little bit in the newspaper saying that I'd behaved really badly and acted with little grace in a situation where I was just fairly fucking easy-come-easy-go. But that's the only time I've really been upset. And it's such a tiny thing. But it's really bad; you shouldn't be able to do that. But again -- not a big deal. It's tomorrow's chip paper. You've gotta let it go, but there is a little part of you that says, "Don't misrepresent people." We don't have enough news (of course we do have enough news) of mind-numbing interest to fill our pages with, so we have to make up shit about somebody?

But I shouldn't complain, and I'm not complaining. Some people get it in the fucking neck. It's just weird, because I should know better. I read something in a horrible magazine and think, "Oh, so and so's doing that... all right..." I should know, but there's a part of you on some very basic, fundamental level that goes, "It's in print, though!" Even though a part of me goes, "Bollocks," there's a part of me that remembers it because it's in print. It's kind of powerful.

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