James McAvoy: Call me Picard-avoy
Welcome To The Punch star talks British cops and robbers, plus growing into Patrick Stewart.
James McAvoy has been talking about new Brit crime thriller ‘Welcome To The Punch’, as well what it’s like growing up into Patrick Stewart’s Professor X in the upcoming ‘X-Men: Days Of Future Past’.
“I will be Jean-Luc McPicard,” he jokes about Stewart’s iconic ‘Star Trek’ character, or maybe “James-Luc Picard-avoy?”
Check out the interview above.
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Speaking to Yahoo! Movies about ‘Welcome To The Punch’ James revealed what he thought made the film stand out on the much-tread path of gritty British crime flicks:
“I like the fact that this film wasn’t trying to be gritty realism,” said McAvoy. “I like that fact that it was trying to be classy. Dare I saw it, quite beautiful action. Very much in that kind of Michael mann, Hong Kong action tradition.
“It’s not a gangster movie,” he added, “It’s a cops and robbers movie.”
We also got chance to ask the 33 year-old actor about upcoming ‘X-Men’ prequel-sequel, ‘Days Of Future Past’ - particularly his part in it as the younger Professor X (played by Stewart in the ‘X-Men’ 1-3):
“It’s going to be a darker journey for Professor X,” said McAvoy. “That seemed like the natural place to go. Otherwise after the last movie, you just turn him into the Professor X we’ve seen in all the other movies, and make him really sort of, sorted.”
With McAvoy’s English accent skills becoming so important in his movies, we asked the Scottish born actor if he was ever worried about being mistaken for an Englishman in Hollywood:
“I think that used to happen to me. But, after ‘The Last King Of Scotland’, I think it just kind of went away,” said McAvoy.
“Also, sporting a ginger scrag kind of helps remind everybody about my inner Celt.”
‘Welcome To The Punch’, directed by Eran Creevy, is out now in the UK.