An unlikely superhero, James McAvoy plays the lead role in the latest comic book film adaptation, “Wanted”, starring himself, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Mr. McAvoy’s talent has been celebrated for the sheer brilliance he puts into roles in films like Atonement, The Last King of Scotland and many more. As the lead character in “Wanted” develops from mild mannered, regular guy to the baddest of assassins, so too does McAvoy blossom into the role of an action superhero. GearCrave sat down with James McAvoy to discuss the role, the movie, and the lips of Miss Angelina Jolie… continue reading GearCravers, for a behind-the-scenes perspective on one of the Summer’s biggest action films.

In “Wanted”, your character transitions from geek to assassin in a short time. Coming from your past roles in “Atonement” and “The Last King of Scotland”, was it hard for you to transition into this role in the same way?

JM: Kind of, yeah. Also because I’d never done a film that took four and a half months to film. Well, Narnia took five months or something like that but I was hardly in it. So when you shoot out of sequence, as you always do, say for two months, it’s less spread out because you’ve only got two months of a shoot. The film’s still going to be the same length as Wanted is, but when you spread it out over four months, there’s even more opportunity for it to become disparate and become disjointed. So you really have to be on top of your continuity and your script. You have to really ride the directors and the producers to kind of go, “Wait, wait, wait. While you’re making that decision, what happens before, can I do that actually?” And sometimes you make an ass of yourself because you question them on everything, but sometimes you save stuff that could have gone really badly and really screw up your character’s arc. And the story of the character and the story of his metamorphosis and why he changes is really what underpins I suppose the whole film and makes it something more than just action. So it was really important that we got that right.

In spite of the stars like Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and others, were you ever concerned that your talent would not translate to an action role?

JM: Yeah, I think I was probably. I did think, “I can’t do an action film.” Partly because of my own doubts about my appropriateness for the role. I thought I was probably bad casting for it but I also thought, some action movies can be just really seamy and really bad. I like action movies when they’re good but when they’re bad they’re such a waste of time. I thought [with] this one, there was a few things [that saved it for me]. First of all, the fact that they were willing to cast somebody like me, which I thought might be a bad idea, was interesting. Then, the fact that they were giving the job to somebody like Timur. I’ve seen lots of vampire films but he made them very different. I thought, well, he’s going to be interesting. And also, the fact that they weren’t making this movie for all the family. They were making this a very violent R rated film for adults and I’ve not seen that a lot lately. They’re all superhero movies that are incredibly violent actually, but they’re just filmed in a kind of slightly sanitized way. Like Indiana Jones. Ants crawling inside somebody’s body and eating them from the inside, that’s incredibly disturbing but done in a kinda slightly cutesy way so you can give it to 12-year-olds. This was never going to be like that and I thought, well, this is all quite cool and different. And even if it fails horribly, it was still trying to be something else.

In an action anti-hero film like Wanted, there’s a greater stunt element involved. You’ve suggested that you’ve wanted to do all of your own stunt work. What were some of the more physically demanding stunts you performed in Wanted?

JM: The train and the gimbal was quite difficult. The whole vertical stuff and climbing up and all that. That was quite fun but difficult. The most difficult thing was probably the car. Jumping on the bonnet (hood) of the car. Most difficult but also the most enjoyable. There’s a car coming along at 30 miles an hour and I kind of rendezvous with it in the middle of the road and jump on the bonnet and then it hits the breaks and I go flying off, and another car smashes into the back. That was all real. There was no wires, there was no mats. I was padded up but that was all real. I can’t believe they let me do that because they wouldn’t let me jump through a pane of sugar glass window. Which would scratch my face at most, maybe not even that, and they wouldn’t let me do that but they’d let me jump on a moving vehicle. So beyond anything I could understand and the insurance people were out of their mind I think that day. But I didn’t argue with them. I just thought I’d give it a bash. But then just before they’d say action, you are kind of like, “I can’t believe they’re letting me do this. I’m slightly terrified now.”

You shared the screen, and some rather steamy scenes, with Miss Jolie. Can you describe for us laymen what it was like working with (and kissing) Angelina?

JM: It’s great. She’s cool. I was quite nervous when I got told that she was in the film because I was cast before anybody else. Then I was told Morgan was going to be in it and I was quite shocked and stunned. Then I was told Angelina was going to be in it and I thought, “F*ck, man, I really didn’t think it was going to be that big.” So I was quite nervous but within five, 10 minutes, you quickly realize that she’s cool and chilled out and fairly willing to have a laugh at her own expense as wherever else there’s a joke. And she was the one, more so than anybody else probably showed me the way to do these films. I was coming in and I don’t know, there’s probably a part of me that was worried because I was in a new environment. It was a new genre and slightly on the lookout for being fucked if you’ll excuse my French. But she was the one that kind of just reminded me, “You know, you don’t have to take it too seriously. We’re not changing people’s lives with a film like this. If you can’t have fun when you make a film like this, what’s the point in doing it?” It was a really good point and that kind of kept me chilled out for the rest of the time after that. And, she’s got a great stunt double called Eunice Huthart who could rip my head off really. She’s smaller than me but she could kick seven colors of shit out of me easily, and she’s one of the funniest ladies in the planet. She’s just so nice. So we had a good time, really, really good time.

In spite of the action, did you find it rewarding to put such intense character emotions into this film? Like the panic attack scene?

JM: I love doing that. It was also, I felt that the character arc and his journey provided a lot of drama in this as well. I didn’t feel like it was just a genre movie. I didn’t feel it was just a comic book movie. I felt there was a sufficiently interesting character and someone in a very truthful and actually quite sad place to begin with in the film. So it was scenes like that that made me think, well, I think the actor in me is not going to be unemployed for four and a half months while I do action, do you know what I mean? I did feel that there was enough to do there to satisfy my acting urge as well. And all the panic attack stuff I loved. I love really physicalizing, I don’t just mean by doing action scenes, but playing Mr. Tumnus in Narnia. It was such a physical role even though I wasn’t doing stunts, it’s still incredibly physical. And doing all the panic attack stuff, doing anything that’s emotionally instigated but physically manifested is just really, really interesting I think. It’s a complete emotional response, isn’t it? A panic attack. I loved all of that.

Thanks for sitting down with GearCrave, James. Give Angelina a kiss for us, and please ask her to return all of our calls. GearCravers, be sure to check out Wanted in theaters this Friday, June 27th. In the mean time, you can view the trailer at Youtube.