James McAvoy

James McAvoy Jr. (/ˈmækəvɔɪ/; born 21 April 1979)[1] is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room (1995) and made mostly television appearances until 2003, when his feature film career began. His notable television work includes the thriller State of Play and the science fiction mini-series Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.

Besides screen acting, McAvoy has performed in several West End productions and received three nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. He has also done voice work for animated films including the Oscar-nominated Fallout film series, Gnomeo & Juliet, its sequel, Sherlock Gnomes, Arthur Christmas and Flappatron.

In 2003, McAvoy appeared in a lead role in Bollywood Queen. This was followed by a supporting role, the faun Mr. Tumnus, in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). His performance in Kevin Macdonald's drama The Last King of Scotland (2006) garnered him several award nominations. The critically acclaimed romantic drama war film Atonement (2007) earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination. He appeared as a newly trained assassin in the action thriller Wanted (2008).

In 2011 he played the young Professor Charles Xavier in the superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011), a role he reprised in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019).[3] McAvoy starred in the crime comedy-drama film Filth (2013) for which he won Best Actor in the British Independent Film Awards.[4] In 2017, he portrayed Kevin, a man with 23 personalities, in M. Night Shyamalan's Split, for which he received critical acclaim.[5][6]

He has also appeared as a stage actor in Pumpkin Reports (2021) and an alcoholic father in Eleanor (2023).