Why James McAvoy almost turned down Danny Boyle
In British cinema, few names are more respected or revered than Danny Boyle. After making his feature debut with Shallow Grave in 1994, Boyle continued his working relationship with Ewan MGgregor and began to forge a legacy with Trainspotting. The gritty film retains a cult following decades later, with orange ‘Choose Life’ posters still adorning uni halls across the country.
The cult following behind Trainspotting was so strong that the director embarked upon a follow-up movie in 2017 entitled T2 Trainspotting. Somewhere in between the two instalments, he preempted the Cillian Murphy hype with 28 Days Later, took on turtlenecks and tech with Steve Jobs, and even took home a ‘Best Director’ title for Slumdog Millionaire.
With accolades and awards to spare, it seems impossible to imagine any actor turning down the opportunity to work with Boyle. His projects are more than worthy of their acclaim, consistently complex and endlessly entertaining. Boyle’s reputation may precede him, but it wasn’t quite weighty enough to convince a wary James McAvoy to take a chance on Trance.
In 2013, Boyle ventured into the world of con men with Trance, which follows Simon Newton through heists and hypnotism. It’s just as slick as the rest of his filmography, but the Scottish director was initially unconvinced by the character at the centre of it. McAvoy didn’t jump at the chance to take on the role of Simon as he believed him to be a victim.
Uninterested in playing the character he first perceived Simon to be, it took McAvoy reading a little closer to finally come around to the role. “I got about 15 or 20 pages in,” he recalled to Laura Sullivan on NPR, “And I started to sense that something else was coming in the character, and then something else did come. And then, about every ten pages, something else came.”
Once the characterisation took in McAvoy, he became insatiable “until at the end, I was hunching at the bit, as we say in Scotland”. Clarifying the meaning of the Scottish phrase, he clarified, “It just means I was desperate… I was hungry to play this part.” This hunger certainly came across in his stellar leading performance, as captivating and hypnotising as the spells placed on his character by Rosario Dawson’s Elizabeth Lamb.
Pushing past his initial reservations about his character, McAvoy landed one of the most underrated roles of his filmography and proved himself to be the perfect match for Boyle. Revisit Trance below.
