New interviews with James.
"I wanted Arthur to be really appealing without being cute, with soft hair that would make you want to pat him," is how the Arthur Christmas director Sarah Smith envisaged her lead character. Is that James McAvoy? It is now.
"I thought I was auditioning, but it turned out, I actually already had the gig, which was a bonus," is how the softly-spoken Scottish actor remembers it.
It's not surprising. McAvoy is one of the UK's most in-demand young actors, after delving into a fantasy world as the wide-eyed Mr Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia, opposite Angelina Jolie in Wanted, engaging with the science of X Men: First Class and brooding wartime drama in Atonement, under his belt.
Here, McAvoy voices the title role of Arthur, the younger son of the Santa Claus dynasty, in a animated Christmas fairytale. Arthur's family are charged with the duty of delivering presents to all the children in the world, with some help from 21st century technology and a million hardworking elves.
McAvoy also has animation form with the title role in Gnomeo and Juliet, although, as he describes it, the exercise of voicing a role still throws him.
"It's very strange," he reflects in London. "You're an integral part of the team and your voice creates what's happening, but you're not even there 99% of the time, and when you are, there's no one else in the room, so you feel isolated. It's a strange, disjointed process."
It definitely has its benefits though, he admits.
"It's very freeing, you can be somebody else entirely, not just in the normal way of acting, but when your physicality doesn't matter, it's just about what your voice can do. I did a lot of radio when I first started out, and it's not that different."
Plus, for McAvoy, it meant the chance to work with such British stalwarts as Oscar winner Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Ashley Jensen, Hugh Laurie and his old castmate from TV's State of Play, Bill Nighy - whom McAvoy calls "an incredibly cool, cool guy".
McAvoy already has other projects in the pipeline, from London thriller Welcome to the Punch to an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's best-seller Filth.
But if this level of success now seems inevitable for someone as diverse and appealing as McAvoy, in his own head, when did it start feeling different?
"I think The Last King of Scotland was probably the turning point," he remembers, of the epic biopic that told the story of Idi Amin and his doctor, played by McAvoy. "People saw I could be that guy who could help tell the film's story. And because Forrest won the Oscar, and it was a critical hit, it meant lots of directors and studio people saw it, and therefore saw me."
Despite his current run of success, there is no hint that McAvoy is resting on his laurels, in fact it's quite the reverse.
"The challenge is that we all want to get better, and we're all capable of being bad," he says of his increasingly high profile. "As you get more recognition from audiences and professionals alike, you're not allowed to fail, that's the hard thing. The scary thing is it can become about getting it right instead of just doing it, seeing what happens and being brave.
"Sometimes you get tempted to be less brave, do something easier. But that's not how you've got where you are, so that's the challenge. Hopefully, you've racked up enough good things, so by the time there's a bad one, they'll forgive you."
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MANILA, Philippines -- “Santa’s my dad!,” exclaims British actor James McAvoy who provides the voice to the title role of Arthur, Santa Claus' youngest son, in Sony Pictures Animation Studios' new, 3D family comedy “Arthur Christmas.”
“Arthur believes in Christmas, and not just because he’s been born into the family business,” says McAvoy. “He believes it in his soul - there’s nobody else in the world who cares about Christmas more than Arthur.”
“Arthur Christmas” at last reveals the incredible, never-before-seen answer to every child's question: “So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?” The answer: Santa's exhilarating, ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole. But at the heart of the film is a story with the ingredients of a Christmas classic - a family in a state of comic dysfunction and an unlikely hero: Santa’s youngest son, Arthur. When this amazing operation misses one child out of hundreds of millions, the least capable Claus embarks on a hilarious, exciting rogue mission against the clock to deliver the last present before Christmas morning dawns.
Despite living in a world devoted year-round to the business of Christmas, Arthur loves everything to do with the season. He is especially passionate about what Santa - who he adores as both dad and figurehead - means to children, whose identities sometimes get lost in the huge logistics of the operation. Trouble is, in the ultra-efficient, high-tech delivery operation of Christmas, Santa’s youngest son is a spare part. Allergic to snow and suffering from a fear of heights, reindeer, and high-speed travel, Arthur isn’t exactly a natural Claus. The family loves him - but has never quite known what to do with him. And although Arthur’s office in the Letters Department is a chaotic mess of snow globes and pictures of Santa, it’s a magical little corner where Arthur alone revels in the joy of it all.
“Arthur reads every single letter that comes to the North Pole, because he believes that every child deserves to receive a present at Christmastime,” says McAvoy. “You know, he’s relegated to the mailroom, because he’s caused a lot of accidents at the North Pole, but it’s just perfect for him - he gets to read these letters about the importance and the essence of Christmas, every second of every day.”
“Arthur cannot bear the idea of a kid waking up on Christmas morning and finding out that Santa didn’t come,” says co-screenwriter Sarah Smith. “Arthur sees the world through that kid’s eyes - it would be the end of the world.”
“Arthur is a fanboy and a workhorse for Christmas,” McAvoy continues. “He wouldn’t want to do anything else - he lives for Christmas. It’s exciting to play somebody that fulfilled because you get to keep increasing the energy, as the character tries to maintain that fulfillment.”
“The movie is really funny and very clever,” McAvoy concludes. “It’s ingenious, inventive, irreverent, different, and funny - I suppose that’s what drew all of us to do it.”
Opening across the Philippines in December, “Arthur Christmas” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.
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Having scored a surprise hit earlier this year with Gnomeo & Juliet, James McAvoy is back behind the mic for Aardman Animation's latest offering, Arthur Christmas.
"It's a pretty cool experience for an actor, doing animation," offers McAvoy. "You've got to project your character, your emotions, clearly and simply. And then you've got to allow for the fact that there's going to be a physical representation of you up there on the screen, who won't necessarily look like you. Or walk like you. Or even talk like you. If you're lucky. In a way, it's what every actor dreams of -- completely losing yourself in a role to the point where no one will recognise it's you."
McAvoy and the missus, fellow former Shameless actor Anne-Marie Duff, have a child, one-year-old Brendan: "It is a kick, thinking about how a child's mind is going to work out how their parent's voice is coming out of someone they don't recognise, at all," smiles McAvoy. "You want to keep that wonder there as long as you can, and doing these animated films is certainly one way to sprinkle some magic into my child's life. And a little confusion too, of course . . ."
grace
According to one ratings board, Arthur Christmas contains 'some mild rude humour', which has become the one saving grace of a Christmas film these days. It certainly worked for Elf.
"There is a comparison to be made to Elf, indeed," nods McAvoy. "A dose of humour is pretty effective when it comes to countering all the usual seasonal trimmings. This is Aardman though, so . . . as John Lasseter always says, it's all about the story. Whether it's shot in digital animation or with your kid's crayons, if the story works, the audience will follow."
We'll be seeing plenty of McAvoy over the coming months, acting alongside Mark Strong and Peter Mullan in Evan Creevy's crime drama Welcome To The Punch, alongside Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson in Danny Boyle's Trance (currently filming), and early next year, there's Jon S Baird's adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel Filth, which will co-star Jamie Bell and Alan Cumming. There's also talk of the sequel to the Angelina Jolie-led, 2008 hit Wanted.
"Yeah, I've heard talk about that one too," smiles McAvoy. I like mixing it up. Keeps me interested, and, hopefully, that comes across in my work . . ."
Arthur Christmas is in cinemas
- Paul Byrne
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