Brad Pitt and George Clooney need to watch their famous backs. There’s a new sex symbol in town, and he’s arrived with a vengeance and a passport.
It’s not every 28-year-old Brit who seduces Keira one minute and turns his on-screen affections to Angelina the next.
Meet James McAvoy, who stars with Keira Knightley in the critically acclaimed “Atonement,” which opened Friday, and also logged time in Chicago last summer filming steamy scenes with Angelina Jolie for the upcoming “Wanted,” where he plays the son of an assassin.
“Atonement” is based on the novel by Ian McEwan. It’s set at a lavish English estate, and McAvoy plays a working class gardener called Robbie, who is smart enough to get a scholarship to medical school. His life is just beginning and then he falls in love with Cecilia Tallis, the rich daughter of the manor, played by Knightley. But that joy is interrupted when Robbie is falsely accused of a terrible crime by Cecilia’s jealous 13-year-old sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) and then sent to jail before being shipped away to the front lines of World War II.
The film includes one of the hottest film love scenes ever, with McAvoy and Knightley in a dark English library while no one in the manor is looking.
“Oh, that library scene,” McAvoy says, laughing. “I think it’s embarrassing to do love scenes and it’s never easy. The thing is you just get on with it. It’s part of the job.”
He says he’s not one of those guys who jokes with an actress during love scenes. “I can joke around a bit, but you have to watch yourself. If you joke around too much you can overdo it. Joking doesn’t really help alleviate the tension.
“So, you just do these love scenes. I can say that love scenes are one part of my job that I’d love to give away to someone else.”
But even if the scorching scene with Keira was a bit of an ordeal, “Atonement” certainly wasn’t. “It’s the best script I’ve ever read,” says McAvoy, who got raves last year for “The Last King of Scotland” and also starred in 2005’s “The Chronicles of Narnia.” “I thought the characters were beautifully drawn and Robbie was just such a tortured, exquisite individual. He’s such a good man and then circumstances totally rip him to shreds. It’s your basic story of a good man wronged.
“He’s sent to jail and then to war but not as an officer. He’s a prisoner, so he gets the worst duty. He has to struggle for his sanity. This is a young man who needs to repair his soul.”
Filming “Wanted” in Chicago gave McAvoy the opportunity to experience a little American culture. At Wrigley Field, no less.
“I saw my first American baseball game in Chicago, which was fantastic,” he says. “I saw your Cubs play St. Louis. It was raining, but then the rain stopped and the Cubs won.”
Big Picture News Inc.
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