James McAvoy Interview

What really gets my goat

09.10.2004 By CATHRIN SCHAER
“Ah am a hairree goat,” is almost the first thing he declares in an entertainingly Scottish accent. And hmmm, yes actually, you can just imagine it.

Despite the fact that actor James McAvoy has been described as “the next Hugh Grant”, it is true that today, in this Auckland hotel, he also has the makings of a decent goat-cum-guy. Otherwise known in fairytales as a faun.

McAvoy has been in New Zealand for four months shooting scenes for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

In the movie version of the first book in the Narnia series, he plays the wily faun, Mr Tumnus.

The errant half-goat, half-man is supposed to deliver the adventurous children, who have stumbled into the fantasy land of Narnia, to the evil White Witch but decides he likes them too much to do so.

And on this rainy Tuesday morning, with his boyish frame, his tousled dark hair, a ready smile on his mildly cherubic face and the beginnings of what will eventually become a two-pronged, faun-ish ginger beard, you can just imagine this Glaswegian lad nimbly prancing on set, devouring crumpets and cracking jokes.

Luckily for him (and possibly us) his hairy legs, complete with hooves, will be computer-generated.

But before they get to see this bestial version of McAvoy in action, viewers are more likely to catch him on the big screen in a new romantic comedy, Wimbledon.

Read the whole story at The New Zealand Herald