Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh 2004 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
Born	(1958-09-27) 27 September 1958 (age 53) Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Heriot-Watt University
Genres	Literature, Novel
Literary movement	Modernism, Post Modernism
Notable work(s)	Trainspotting, The Acid House
Influences Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William S. Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, William McIlvanney, Alan Spence, Iggy Pop, Bertolt Brecht, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Kierkegaard, James Joyce, Jim Carroll
www.irvinewelsh.net/default.aspx

Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh) is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life. He has also written plays, screenplays, and directed several short films.

Biography[link]

Irvine Welsh was born in Leith, the port area of the Scottish capital Edinburgh. His family moved to Muirhouse, in Edinburgh, when he was four, where the family stayed at local housing schemes.^[1] His mother worked as a waitress. His father was a dock worker in Leith until bad health forced him to become a carpet salesman; he died when Welsh was 25. Welsh left Ainslie Park High School when he was 16 and then completed a City and Guilds course in electrical engineering. He became an apprentice TV repairman until an electric shock persuaded him to move on to a series of other jobs.^[1] He left Edinburgh for the London punk scene in 1978, where he played guitar and sang in The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13,^[1] the latter a reference to the Ibrox disaster. A series of arrests for petty crimes and finally a suspended sentence for trashing a North London community centre inspired Welsh to correct his ways. He worked for Hackney London Borough Council in London and studied computing with the support of the Manpower Services Commission.^[1]

In the mid 1980s he became a minor property speculator, renovating houses in the rapidly gentrifying North London. After the London property boom of the 1980s, Welsh returned to Edinburgh in late 80s, where he worked for the city council in the housing department. He went on to study for an MBA at Heriot-Watt University, writing his thesis on creating equal opportunities for women.

Welsh has made several reading tours around the world and has been involved with his beloved house music as a DJ, promoter and producer. Like many of his characters, he supports Hibs. He met an American woman Beth Quinn, 26^[when?], when he was teaching creative writing in Chicago, and they were married in July 2005. He considers the age gap inconsequential. 'I've never felt tied to any one age ... I've never thought "I must find someone a couple of years younger than I am".' Welsh was previously married to Anne Ansty from 1984 until their divorce in 2003.^[2]

On 20th April 2012, on BBC Breakfast, he advised he lives in Chicago, with his wife. Previously he lived in Dublin, Ireland.^[3][4] In an interview with The Daily Mail on 7 August 2006, he described himself as "not so much middle-class as upper-class. I'm very much a gentleman of leisure. I write. I sit and look out of my window into the garden. I enjoy books. I love the density and complexity of Jane Austen and George Eliot. I listen to music; I travel. I can go off to a film festival whenever I like." He also describes himself as monogamous: "it sounds boring but it's the way I am".

Fiction[link]

Irvine Welsh in Warsaw, Poland, 13 March 2006

To date, Welsh has published seven novels and four collections of short stories. His first novel, Trainspotting, was published in 1993, and rumor has it that Welsh wrote it in the breaks while writing his thesis at Heriot-Watt University's Library, second floor.^{[citation needed]} Set in the mid 1980s, it uses a series of loosely connected short stories to tell the story of a group of characters tied together by decaying friendships, heroin addiction and stabs at escape from the oppressive boredom and brutality of their lives in the housing schemes. It was released to shock and outrage in some circles and great acclaim in others; Time Out called it "funny, unflinchingly abrasive, authentic and inventive", and The Sunday Times called Welsh "the best thing that has happened to British writing for decades". One critic (Welsh's personal friend Kevin Williamson) went so far as to say that Trainspotting "deserves to sell more copies than The Bible". It was adapted as a play, and a film adaptation, directed by Danny Boyle and written by John Hodge, was released in 1996. Welsh himself appeared in the film as Mikey Forrester, a minor character. The film was a worldwide success. U.S. Senator Bob Dole decried its supposed moral depravity and glorification of drug use during the 1996 presidential campaign, although he admitted that he had not actually seen the film.^[5]

The novel has since achieved a cult status, aided by the global success of the film.^[6]

Next, Welsh released The Acid House, a collection of short stories from Rebel Inc., New Writing Scotland and other sources. Many of the stories take place in and around the housing schemes from Trainspotting, and employ many of the same themes; however, a touch of fantasy is apparent in stories such as The Acid House, where the minds of a baby and a drug user swap bodies, or The Granton Star Cause, where God transforms a man into a fly as punishment for wasting his life. Welsh himself adapted three of the stories for a later film, which he also appeared in.

Welsh's third book (and second novel), Marabou Stork Nightmares, alternates between a typically grim tale of thugs and schemes in sub-working class Scotland and a hallucinatory adventure tale set in South Africa. Gradually, common themes begin to emerge between the two stories, culminating in a shocking ending.

His next book, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996), became his most high-profile work since Trainspotting, released in the wave of publicity surrounding the film. It consists of three unconnected novellas: the first, Lorraine Goes To Livingston, is a bawdy satire of classic British romance novels, the second, Fortune's Always Hiding, is a revenge story involving thalidomide and the third, The Undefeated, is a sly, subtle romance between a young woman dissatisfied with the confines of her suburban life and an aging clubgoer. Most critics dismissed the first two as relatively minor affairs and focused their praise on The Undefeated. Welsh's narration imbued both characters with surprising warmth, and the story avoided easy, pro-ecstasy conclusions. The popular alternative band My Chemical Romance stated in their DVD Life On The Murder Scene that bassist Mikey Way got the name for their band from the book's subtitle.

A corrupt police officer and his tapeworm served as the narrators for his third novel, Filth (1998). Welsh had never avoided flawed characters, but the main character of Filth was a brutally vicious sociopathic policeman.

Glue (2001) was a return to the locations, themes and episodic form of Trainspotting, telling the stories of four characters spanning several decades in their lives and the bonds that held them together.

Having revisited some of them in passing in Glue, Welsh brought most of the Trainspotting characters back for a sequel, Porno, in 2002. In this book Welsh explores the impact of pornography on the individuals involved in producing it, as well as society as a whole, and the impact of aging and maturity in individuals against their will.

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (2006), deals with a young, alcoholic civil servant who finds himself inadvertently putting a curse on his nemesis, a nerdy co-worker. In 2007, Welsh published If You Liked School You'll Love Work, his first collection of short stories in over a decade.

At the request of the Daily Telegraph, Welsh travelled with a group of authors and journalists to the Sudan in 2001. A book called The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa was the result, to which Welsh contributed a novella called Contamination, about the violence and warlords in the region. A second book, The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta, was published in 2004. Welsh, Ian Rankin, and Alexander McCall Smith each contributed a short story for the One City compilation published in 2005 in benefit of the One City Trust for social inclusion in Edinburgh.

Welsh's most recently published novel is entitled Crime, whose main character is Ray Lennox (who appeared in Welsh's previous work, Filth). Detective Inspector Ray Lennox is recovering from a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a particularly horrifying child sex murder case back in Edinburgh. The story takes place in Florida.^[7]

Welsh is currently writing a prequel to Trainspotting, to be called Skagboys.^[8][9][10]

Film and stage[link]

As well as fiction, Irvine Welsh has written several stage plays, including Headstate, You'll Have Had Your Hole, and the musical Blackpool, which featured original songs by Vic Godard of the Subway Sect.

More recently he coauthored Babylon Heights with his screen writing partner Dean Cavanagh. The play premiered in San Francisco at the Exit Theatre and made its European premiere in Dublin, at The Mill Theatre Dundrum, directed by Graham Cantwell. The plot revolves around the behind-the-scenes antics of a group of Munchkins on the set of The Wizard of Oz. The production included the use of oversized sets with actors of regular stature.

Cavanagh and Welsh have also collaborated on a number of screenplays. The Meat Trade is based on the 19th century West Port murders. Despite the historical source material, Welsh has set the story in the familiar confines of present day Edinburgh, with Burke and Hare depicted as brothers who steal human organs to meet the demands of the global transplant market.

Wedding Belles, a film made for Channel 4 that was written by Welsh and Cavanagh, aired at the end of March 2007. The film centres around the lives of four young women, who are played by Michelle Gomez, Shirley Henderson, Shauna MacDonald, and Kathleen McDermot. Wedding Belles was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA and was subsequently sold to TV channels in Canada and Europe.

Welsh has directed several short films for bands. In 2001 he directed a 15 minute film for Gene's song "Is It Over" which is taken from the album Libertine. In 2006 he directed a short film to accompany the track "Atlantic" from Keane's album Under the Iron Sea.

Welsh directed his first short dramatic film, NUTS, which he co wrote with Cavanagh. The film features Joe McKinney as a man dealing with testicular cancer in post Celtic tiger Ireland. It was released in 2007.

Welsh co-directed 'The Right to liberty' a chapter of the documentary film The New Ten Commandments in 2008.

In 2009 Welsh directed the film Good Arrows (co-directed by Helen Grace). It was written by Welsh and Cavanagh. The film is about a darts player who suffers from depression which causes him to lose his skill.^[11]

Film adaptation[link]

• Trainspotting (1996)
• Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy based on The Undefeated from the book "Ecstasy". (2011)
• The Acid House (1998)

Theatre adaptations[link]

• Ecstasy
• Glue
• Filth
• Trainspotting
• Marabou Stork Nightmares

^[12]

Themes[link]

As well as recreational drug use, Welsh's fiction and non-fiction is dominated by the question of working class and Scottish identity in the period spanning the 1960s to the present day. Within this, he explores the rise and fall of the council housing scheme, denial of opportunity, sectarianism, football, hooliganism, sex, suppressed homosexuality, dance clubs, low-paid work, freemasonry, Irish republicanism, sodomy, class divisions, emigration and, perhaps most of all, the humour, prejudices and axioms of the Scots.

Sam Leith, writing in the Financial Times, argues that:

"Welsh’s concerns are with sin and salvation, with the exercise of free will and with the individual soul. He’s much more interested in teleology than sociology."^[13]

Style[link]

His novels share a number of characters, giving the feel of a "shared universe" within his writing. For example, characters from Trainspotting make cameo appearances in The Acid House, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Ecstasy, Filth, and slightly larger appearances in Glue, whose characters then appear in Porno.

Irvine Welsh is known for writing in his native Edinburgh Scots dialect. He generally ignores the traditional conventions of literary Scots, used for example by Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Orr. Instead, he transcribes dialects phonetically.

Like Alasdair Gray before him, Welsh also experiments with typography. A notable example is the book Filth, where the tapeworm's internal monologue is imposed over the top of the protagonist's own internal monologue (the worm's host), visibly depicting the tapeworm's voracious appetite, much like the 'Climax of Voices' in Gray's novel 1982, Janine.

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

• Trainspotting (1993)
• Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995)
• Filth (1998)
• Glue (2001)
• Porno (2002)
• The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (2006)
• Crime (2008)
• Skagboys (2012)

Short story collections[link]

• The Acid House (1994)
• Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996)
• If You Liked School You'll Love Work (2007)
• Reheated Cabbage (2009)

Script writing[link]

• You'll Have Had Your Hole (drama)
• Dose (half Hour BBC drama written with Dean Cavanagh)^[14]
• The Acid House (screenplay)
• Wedding Belles (2007 film for Channel 4 written with Dean Cavanagh)^[15]
• Four Play This is a collection of Irvine Welsh's books that have been adapted for the stage. Trainspotting, Marabou, Filth, and Ecstasy.^[16]
• Dockers (1999 one-off TV drama for Channel 4, co-written by Jimmy McGovern)^[17]
• Nuts (2007 Short film)^[18]
• Good Arrows (2009 Film) ^[19]
• Bad Blood (2005 Short film) Co-written by Irvine Welsh, based on a section of Trainspotting^[20]

Theatre[link]

• Babylon Heights
• You'll Have Had Your Hole

References[link]

External links[link]

• irvinewelsh.net Official Site
• Irvine Welsh at the Internet Movie Database
• - Info on the BLACKPOOL EP released with Vic Godard & The Subway Sect
• BBC mini-bio on Welsh
• Irvine Welsh at Random House Australia
• SF Interview about "Babylon Heights" play with writing partner Dean Cavanagh
• Interview with 3:AM Magazine
• Interview by Garrett Faber and Interview by Daniel Robert Epstein SuicideGirls

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James McAvoy
McAvoy at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival
Born	James Andrew McAvoy (1979-04-21) 21 April 1979 (age 33)[1] Port Glasgow, Scotland
Alma mater	Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
Occupation	Actor, Voice actor
Years active	1995–present
Spouse	Anne-Marie Duff (2006–present)

James Andrew McAvoy^[2] ( /ˈmækəvɔɪ/ MAK-ə-voi; born (1979-04-21)21 April 1979) is a Scottish stage and screen actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's The Near Room and continued to make mostly television appearances until the early 2000s. His notable television work includes State of Play, Shameless, and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Besides screen acting, McAvoy has appeared on stage with Three Days of Rain in 2009, and in 2011 he did voice work for animated films including Gnomeo & Juliet and Arthur Christmas.

Starting in 2003, McAvoy began to build his film resume with Bollywood Queen. That film was followed with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), a commercial hit. His performance in Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland achieved him not only critical praise, but several award nominations. 2007's critically acclaimed Atonement marked the breakthrough in McAvoy's career. It also earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination. Another big point in the actor's career was starring in Wanted (2008). Since then, he is notable for playing Charles Xavier in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class.

Early life and family[link]

James McAvoy was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Elizabeth (née Johnstone), a psychiatric nurse, and James McAvoy Senior, a builder.^[3][4] He was brought up as a Roman Catholic.^[5] His parents divorced when he was seven, which McAvoy took hard.^[1][3][4] McAvoy's mother suffered from poor health and subsequently decided it was best that he live with his maternal grandparents, Mary and butcher James Johnstone, in the nearby Drumchapel area of Glasgow in a terrace council house.^[3][6] His mother lived with them intermittently.^[4] The actor has regularly visited his grandparents.^[3] He has a sister, Joy, and a younger half-brother, Donald.^[3][4] McAvoy has not been in contact with his father since childhood.^[4] According to his father, McAvoy avoided any contact with him after he moved in with his new lover.^[3] Nonetheless, the actor had a good upbringing.^[7] He attended St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Jordanhill, Glasgow, a Catholic school, and briefly considered joining the Catholic priesthood.^[7][8] In a 2006 interview, McAvoy admitted that part of the reason why he considered becoming a priest was that he wanted to use it as an excuse to travel.^[9] During his education, he worked at a local bakery.^[7][8]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

McAvoy's acting debut came at the age of 15 in The Near Room (1995). McAvoy later admitted that he was not very interested in acting when joining the movie, but was inspired to study the craft after developing feelings for his co-star, Alana Brady.^[10] He continued to act while still a member of PACE Youth Theatre.^[11] McAvoy eventually graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2000.^[12] Throughout the early 2000s, McAvoy made guest appearances in television shows and began working on movies. In 2001, the actor appeared in a play entitled Out in the Open. His performance in the play as a gay hustler impressed filmmaker Joe Wright so much that he stayed on his radar and offered McAvoy parts in his movies, but to no avail, as the actor turned them down for years.^[12]

He also starred in Privates on Parade in the Donmar Warehouse, this time catching Sam Mendes's attention.^[4] Also during 2001, the actor appeared in Band of Brothers, an eleven-hour World War II miniseries by executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.^[13] It was shown on the HBO network.^[14] He gained the attention of critics in 2002's made-for-television adaption of the book White Teeth.^[15]

During 2003 McAvoy appeared in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, adapted from Frank Herbert's novels. It is one of the highest-rated programs ever to be aired on the channel.^[16] More cable work came for him when he accepted the role of an unprincipled reporter in 2003's State of Play. The well-received six-part British drama serial tells the story of a newspaper's investigation into the death of a young woman and was broadcast on BBC One.^[17][18] Calling the program a "must-see", the Chicago Tribune recommended State of Play for its cast's performance.^[19] During 2002, McAvoy shot scenes for Bollywood Queen. Called West Side Story meets Romeo and Juliet with bindis, the movie deals with star-crossed lovers caught in the middle of clashing cultures. It was shown as a special presentation at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and opened in UK theatres on 17 October.^[20][21] In 2004, he acted in a supporting role in the romantic comedy Wimbledon, also featuring Kirsten Dunst as a co-lead.^[22] His next project was voicing a character named Hal in the 2004 English version of Strings, a mythic fantasy film.^[23] Another 2004 release for him was Inside I'm Dancing, an Irish production helmed by Damien O'Donnell. In it, the actor was cast as the principal character: a maverick with duchenne muscular dystrophy.^[24]

Critical success[link]

McAvoy rounded out 2004 by appearing in the first two seasons of Shameless as Steve McBride, the moral hero of the BAFTA-winning Channel 4 program, giving the actor a big break in his career.^[25] His public profile was raised in 2005 with the release of Walt Disney Pictures's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. McAvoy starred in the fantasy adventure film made by Andrew Adamson and based on C. S. Lewis's'children's novel as Mr. Tumnus, a faun who befriends Lucy Pevensie (played by Georgie Henley) and joins Aslan's (Liam Neeson) forces. It was given a UK release of 9 December. At the UK box office, this movie opened at number one, earning around £8.7 million at 498 cinemas over the weekend.^[26] Worldwide, Narnia grossed £463 million, making it the 41st highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide.^[27] That succeeding year he also accepted the principal role of Brian Jackson, a nerdy university student who wins a place on a University Challenge quiz team in the mid-1980s, in Starter for 10. He was directed by David Nicholls, who adapted the film's screenplay from his own book. The British/American production was given distribution in the UK on 10 November. 10 scored a rating of 89% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on a sample of 75 reviews.^[28] In spite of the positive buzz, the movie flopped at the box office, unable to recover its production costs of £5.7 million.^[29][30]

Forrest Whittaker had suggested McAvoy to director Kevin Macdonald for the role of Nicholas Garrigan in 2006's Academy Award-winning low-budgeted The Last King of Scotland.^[31] McAvoy portrayed a Scottish doctor that becomes the personal physician to dictator Idi Amin (played by Whittaker) while in Uganda. While the movie is based on factual events of Amin's rule, the story between the two is fictional and adapted from Giles Foden's acclaimed 1998 novel. He assessed his character to be a "completely selfish prick."^[9] An overwhelmed McAvoy fainted during his first take of what would be the hardest scene for him to shoot, Nicolas's torture.^[32] McAvoy was named Best Actor of the year by the Scotland's own BAFTA Awards, where the film swept the major categories,^[33] and received a nomination from the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The movie itself walked away with three wins, including the honour for Outstanding British Film of the Year.^[34] This was accompanied by praise for McAvoy's performance.^[35]

Following that, he played Irish attorney Tom Lefroy and love-interest to Jane Austen in Becoming Jane, a 2007 historical movie inspired by the author's early life.^[36] Next up was Penelope, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.^[37] Also starring co-producer Reese Witherspoon, it generated polarised reviews.^[38] The breakthrough role in McAvoy's career came in Atonement, Joe Wright's 2007 adaption of Ian McEwan's novel of the same title. A romantic war film, it focuses on lovers Cecilia and Robbie's (Keira Knightley and McAvoy) lives being torn apart after her jealous younger sister (Saoirse Ronan) falsely accuses him of a crime. Upon reading the script, McAvoy thought to himself, "if I don't get the part I'm not reading the book because it'll be devastating. It's an amazing role and I really wanted it."^[39] McAvoy has called the movie "incredibly sad" but considers it an uplifting experience. He also shared that he hoped viewers will be left "absolutely devastated and harrowed."^[40] Screenings of Atonement were held at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was one of most acclaimed films present, and Venice Film Festival.^[41][42] Atonement was a big awards contender; it was nominated for fourteen BAFTAs and seven Academy Awards.^[43][44] Both McAvoy and Knightley were nominated for their performances at the 65th Golden Globe Awards, respectively.^[45] Additionally, the film was lauded by critics, with Metacritic reporting it to have an approval rating of 85.^[46] The Hollywood Reporter writer Ray Bennett said the duo gave "compelling and charismatic performances".^[47]

[edit] Wanted and after

One of the biggest highlights of McAvoy's career was starring opposite Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman in Wanted, an action movie where he personified Wesley Gibson, a young American slacker who learns he is heir to a legacy of assassins. When McAvoy screen-tested for the role, he was initially rejected because the studio was seeking an actor with conventional Hollywood leading-man looks and physique. He later recalled being considered the "runt of the litter" of those who tested, but ultimately got the part in late 2006 since the studio "wanted someone geeky."^[48][49] While shooting action scenes for Wanted, he suffered several injuries, including a twisted ankle and an injured knee.^[50] Nonetheless the actor said he had a "good time" doing the movie. McAvoy had never done this type of genre before and thought of Wanted as a chance to be more versatile.^[51] Loosely based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar, it saw a June 2008 release worldwide. It received favourable reviews from the press, who generally liked that it was fast-paced.^[52] At the box office, Wanted was a success, grossing £207 million against a £45 million production budget.^[53] Next was The Last Station (2009), a biopic that details the final months of celebrated writer Leo Tolstoy and also stars McAvoy's wife.^[54] It was shown at a limited amount of screens in the US.^[55] Although most critics' awards paid attention to co-stars Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer, the Satellite Awards nominated McAvoy for Best Supporting Actor.^[56] In 2009, McAvoy voiced Angelina's father, Maurice Mouseling, in the television series, Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps.

He also appeared onstage in 2009 at Apollo Theater's Three Days of Rain.^[57] He accepted the job of voicing the male titular character in Gnomeo and Juliet (2011), an animated movie based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.^[58] In Robert Redford's historical American drama The Conspirator, McAvoy played the role of an idealistic war hero who reluctantly defends a co-conspirator charged in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. It premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.^[59] While this movie garnered mixed reception, critics lauded the actor for his work. In Owen Gleiberman's assessment of The Conspirator, he found it "stiff-jointed" and tedious, but regarded McAvoy as "an avid presence".^[60] In mid-2010, McAvoy was cast as telepathic superhero Professor X, leader and founder of the X-Men, in X-Men: First Class.^[61] He joined an ensemble that included Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Kevin Bacon. Based on the Marvel Comics and a prequel to the film series, it is set primarily during the Cuban Missile Crisis and focuses on the relationship between Professor X and Magneto and the origin of their groups. McAvoy admitted that he was not familiar with the comics as a child, but was a fan of the cartoons since the age of 10.^[62] Released to the UK on 1 June, First Class topped its box office with ticket sales of around £5 million during its opening weekend.^[63] First Class was also reviewed favourably.^[64] In 2011, McAvoy began filming the role of Max Lewinsky in the British thriller, Welcome to the Punch.^[65] He was also cast as the lead role in the upcoming Danny Boyle film, Trance.

In 2012, McAvoy was cast as Bruce Robertson in Filth, an adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel of the same name. The film's ensemble cast includes Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, and Imogen Poots.^[66] It was also announced that he would co-star with Jessica Chastain in a double-feature film project, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.^[67]

Personal life[link]

Duff and McAvoy in February 2007

McAvoy dated Scottish actress Emma Nielsen (stage name Emma King) for six years until 2003.^[68] While working on Shameless, McAvoy started a relationship with his character's love interest, Anne-Marie Duff, who is nine years his senior.^[69] When they first began dating, McAvoy and Duff mutually agreed not to speak to the press about their relationship.^[68][70][71] At the age of 27, he married Duff, then 36, on 18 October 2006 in a quiet ceremony.^[69][71] When asked by Ryan Seacrest, during his radio show, if he wished he had waited longer to get married so he could exploit his fame better, McAvoy replied that he had married the woman of his dreams. "The world seemed less scary.... And I started to like myself a little bit more," McAvoy added of how he knew they were in love.^[40]

They have one child together, a son named Brendan, born in 2010.^[72] During interviews, the actor has opted not to discuss his son and have not announced their child's birth date, although he has stated the little man keeps him up at night.^[73] He had dropped out of the cancer dramedy 50/50 in early 2010, shortly before filming was to begin, reportedly in fear that he would miss the birth of their child.^[74] Despite his wealth, McAvoy leads what has been called a modest life. Prior to marrying Duff, he purchased a second floor flat in North London during 2006 for about £178,000. Also, he and his wife drive a 1990s Nissan Micra that is worth less than £1,000.^[75] The couple enjoy a close relationship and rarely leave their flat, choosing to instead read or do sudoku puzzles together. Of this lifestyle, the actor said it is "mundane, and I love it that way".^[3]

After McAvoy won an award from the BAFTAs, his estranged father spoke to the Sunday Mirror, stating that he would love to get in touch with his son, but did not know how to reach him. Though the actor did not read the piece, he heard about it and was unmoved.^[4] He enjoys fantasy themes which he said started from the age of 11 with The Lord of the Rings.^[76] His big interest outside acting and science fiction is football; he is a huge fan of Celtic Football Club, stating that his dream role would be to play Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone.^[77] McAvoy considers himself a spiritual person who no longer practices Catholicism.^[8] Speaking to Sky News, McAvoy said he believed that British filmmakers belittle and dumb down their productions to please American audiences. "It's like we're patronising them and short changing ourselves," the actor commented.^[78] He has also branded 3-D films a "waste of money", accusing movie studios of using the effect to get more money out of their theatre audiences.^[79]

Charity[link]

At one point, McAvoy did a "terrifying" base jump from the world's tallest hospital building in a bid to help raise money for Ugandan children's charity Retrak, an organisation which assists children on the streets.^[80] Additionally, McAvoy is a celebrity supporter of the British Red Cross with whom he travelled to Uganda to raise awareness of the projects there. He had become involved with the charity after shooting The Last King of Scotland there for several months and was shocked by what he saw in the landlocked country.^[81] In February 2007, he visited northern Uganda and spent four days seeing projects supported by the British Red Cross.^[82]

Filmography[link]