James McAvoy

The Royal Theatre Haymarket recently held a Masterclass with James Mcavoy as the ‘master’; he was funny, open and truthful about his career and life as an actor. The moment he stepped on the stage he spread a relaxed atmosphere and gave a comfortable feeling to the audience, his charisma, charm and natural comedy received applauds and laughs throughout.

His faith in acting comes from his first acting experience, during his teenage years, he was lucky enough to meet a great director called David Hayman who was visiting his secondary school. His classmates seemed to think acting and work in the arts was “gay” but ignoring his mates he approached The Director, David, after he had finished his speech and asked “if your going to make another film soon can I make tea for you?” to which David replied a few months later, by inviting him to be in his film. The young Mcavoy then realised “by being bold good things follow”. Later in his career he also discovered “your decisions as an actor and playing a moment, all those things are hugely important, openness to the moment, to let things in, as well as emit things is really important, vulnerability because when you are that open you can be shot down in flames” he acknowledged that you must listen and take what’s said in, and that’s what makes you open, putting yourself on stage in front of an audience that may not necessarily like you makes you vulnerable and realising what people think and accepting it makes you stronger and helps you become bold and fearless.

Many of the questions asked related to is current work and his past roles in television and theatre as well as film, but he was happy to answer questions on his career and his colleagues. He explained to everyone that his view on an acting career is that “if your working, you’re successful” no matter what you’re doing, whether it’s a small role in a television show or a lead in a play/film.

His career has been a huge pick ‘n’ mix of different aspects of acting including film, stage and television. However, he prefers film and stage performing rather than television because it’s over too quickly, his work on film and theatre has given him the understanding that the higher people in those areas consider your artistic concerns greater than that of television. He described ‘The Last King of Scotland’ as an adventure in both good and bad ways, and wishes to relive it “although, I wouldn’t change anything”.
He described his favourite characters as being like his role in “The Last King of Scotland”. His advice to film actors is that you should never leave the set and you should keep your eyes and ears open to the crew and the director and you will learn so much more about the life of film and the jobs people do to make yours easier. During a play his most loved talent about a stage based character is the conflict with the audience, for example having the first five minutes to hook the audience than the ability to play with them after that, “you can become a bastard after that, and I like that, I really like that”

He also described the preparation for a role, his methods were to read and re-read the script over and over again “and more often than not you learn it without meaning to”. He also believed reading books written during that time period can bring new motives and feelings to the role you’re playing to gain a back story, but he enjoys using his imagination and creativity to bring his own vision to the personality of his character. His main recommendation to build an interesting character is to create a viewpoint of your own towards the other characters so you can implement your own moral fibre for the role, continuing on benefitting your character he believed when you have a character who Is completely one thing e.g. a truly evil character, you can bring new feelings to the person and show yourself as multi-faceted the connection with the actors is a vital point but even more important is the connection with the audience and the passion you use to keep them interested, “even when performing a monologue, you still have to connect with the audience”

- Written by Luke Briggs

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