He says that acting is a gamble – but is a dead cert to terrify audiences with new film Speak No Evil. The Scottish actor talks about marriage, therapy – and why Ken Loach would never cast him
e is a funny character, James McAvoy. I meet him in one of those fancy Soho hotels where the cast of films that are about to be massive assemble so they can all be interviewed on the same day. And McAvoy’s new psychological thriller, Speak No Evil, will be massive. A remake ofMcAvoy, 45, is personable and urbane. He is wearing a suit, but looks like a guy who changes into cargo shorts as soon as he gets home. “I’m really lucky in a lot of ways, mainly that my granny’s all over me,” he says.
But let the man finish: “I think I’m desensitised because I’ve spent my life on screens and stages being either clapped or booed, and it’s a gamble. I don’t always come off winning that bet. I can deal with criticism because I’ve failed, badly, on both platforms, and I’m good with it.”For someone who has always met his failures with standout equanimity, it is amazing how often he mentions them. There is the play, which, he says was “very poorly received, early in my career, and that was tough.
In essence, Speak No Evil comprises two couples – one British, one American but living in London – with one child each. After they meet on holiday, the Americans go to visit Paddy and his wife, Ciara , at their home in Devon. For a short time, it appears to be a tense comedy of cross-continental manners and how disgusting British plumbing, domestic hygiene and decor are to people used to a higher standard and who use napkins.
He became a household name when he appeared in the first two seasons of Paul Abbott’s compelling black comedy. McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff carried the heart of it, for all that there were other brilliant and much greyer beards in the cast . McAvoy was 25, Duff was 33, and the pair later married, after being full-on tabloid fodder for ages. They had a son in 2010, and divorced in 2016. McAvoy then married Lisa Liberati, in 2022, and they had a son that year.
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