“Girls didn't really take much interest in me until I was about 14. But I knew how to talk to them very quickly. What I figured out - that my friends didn't - was you have to talk to women like you're not constantly trying to have sex with them. That seemed to work.”

Scottish actor and director

James McAvoy is a Scottish actor and director. Born in 1979, he made his acting debut as a teenager in The Near Room (1995) and spent much of the early part of his career working in television before his film career began in 2003. His television roles include the thriller State of Play (2003), the science fiction miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003), and the drama series Shameless (2004 to 2005). He is known for work across film, television, and stage, with performances that often move between drama, suspense, and character-driven stories.