James McAvoy

James McAvoy (/ˈmækəvɔɪ/; born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor and director. He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his film career began. His television work includes the thriller State of Play (2003), the science fiction miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003), and the drama series Shameless (2004–2005).

McAvoy gained recognition for playing Mr. Tumnus in the fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and an assassin in the action film Wanted (2008). After winning the inaugural BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2006, his performances in the period dramas The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Atonement (2007) gained him BAFTA Award nominations. In 2011 he voiced the title characters in Arthur Christmas and Gnomeo & Juliet, and portrayed Charles Xavier in the superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in four subsequent installments of the X-Men series.

McAvoy gained praise for starring in the independent crime film Filth (2013), and appeared as a superpowered man with 23 dissociative identities in M. Night Shyamalan's Split (2016) and its successor Glass (2019). He portrayed Lord Asriel in the fantasy series His Dark Materials from 2019 to 2022, and starred as Bill Denbrough in the horror film It Chapter Two (2019). In the 2020s, McAvoy starred in the horror film Speak No Evil (2024), and made his directorial debut with California Schemin' (2025).

On stage, McAvoy has performed in several West End productions, such as Three Days of Rain in 2010, Macbeth in 2013, The Ruling Class in 2015, and Cyrano de Bergerac in 2020, for which he received four nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.