James McAvoy

James McAvoy, a Scottish actor, was born on 21st April 1979 in Glasgow Scotland. His parents, James and Elizabeth, divorced when he was just 11 years old, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. 

For schooling, he attended St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Jordanhill, where he did well in his studies. After school, he considered becoming a priest, but the idea did not materialize. He then applied for Royal Navy, where he was accepted. A visit to his school by actor David Hayman inspired his interest in an acting career. At the same time, he got an opportunity to study acting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly known as RSAMD, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), from where he graduated in 2000 and moved to London. 

At the age of 15, James received his professional acting debut in the film The Near Room (1995). He made several appearances in television shows until he got attention by playing a role of a car thief and the love interest of one of the main characters in the TV series Shameless (2004), which aired in the UK. A year later, he played the role of Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) from which he rose to prominence. His breakthrough came when he starred in Joe Wright’s directed Romance/Drama film Atonement (2007), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.    

He then went on to appear in several movies, particularly in the film Filth (2013), for which he earned a Scottish BAFTA for Best Actor, a Best Actor for British Independent Film Award, and an Empire Award for Best Actor. Out of his several roles in movies, one most prominent is the role of Professor Charles which he played in the X-Men series (i.e., X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)). McAvoy’s last movie was Christian Carion’s directed thriller/mystery My Son (2021).

James got into a relationship with Anne-Marie Duff when they were working together in the film Shameless (2004). They went on to marry on 11th November 2006, and she bore him a son in 2010. However, the couple got divorced in May 2016 after 10 years of being together. After his divorce from Duff, there were speculations about James’s relationship with Lisa Liberati until in an interview with The Guardian earlier this year he revealed that he secretly married his partner in 2016. They both met on the set of Split (2016), where Lisa worked as a personal assistant to the director of the movie.