James McAvoy is a Scottish actor and director born on 21 April 1979 in Glasgow. He began performing as a teenager in the mid-1990s and spent much of his early career on British television before transitioning to film in 2003. Over the following two decades, he built one of the most varied bodies of work in contemporary British cinema, spanning period dramas, science fiction, superhero films, horror, and independent features alongside an active stage career in London’s West End. McAvoy earned international recognition for roles that included Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia, an assassin in Wanted, Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise, Kevin Wendell Crumb in Split, and Lord Asriel in His Dark Materials. He won the inaugural BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2006 and received BAFTA nominations for The Last King of Scotland and Atonement. His West End performances have earned four Laurence Olivier Award nominations for Best Actor, and in November 2024 he began principal photography on his directorial debut, California Schemin’.
