This month?s Wanted is the latest graphic novel-to-movie translation. In it, James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, an apathetic nine-to-fiver who is inducted into a secret society of super-assassins. With a hitman list that includes Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, and a guy named The Butcher, who could turn that down? Here, James tells us what it was like to work with such an amazing cast, performing those amazing stunts, and, oh yeah? those ?Hobbit? rumors

You've got your badass hitman look going on with the leather jacket.
Hey, man. I have worn leather jackets in the past. I'm just so pleased to be publicizing a film that doesn?t require me to wear a suit 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because generally, the films that I've been publicizing over the last two years have been very serious and that's great and I love them, but I hate wearing suits. So that's the reason I did this film, so I could stop wearing suits.

Were you worried about how this film would turn out?
Yeah, I think I probably was. I did think, "I can't do an action film." Partly because of my own doubts about my appropriateness for the role. I thought I was probably bad casting for it, but I also thought the action movie can be just really seamy and can be really bad. I like action movies when they're good but when they're bad they're such a waste of time. There was a few things that saved this one for me. First of all, the fact that they were willing to cast somebody like me - which I thought might be a bad idea - was interesting. The fact that they were giving the job [of directing] to somebody like Timur, who is making vampire films. I've seen lots of vampire films but he made them very different. I thought, ?Well, he's going to be interesting.?

Also the fact that they weren't making this movie for all the family. They were making this a very violent R-rated film for adults and I've not seen that a lot lately. You can find it if you go to the straight to DVD market but in the mainstream [movies] with good production values and commitment and money? I don't really see that hard R-rated film for adults at the moment. They're all superhero movies that are incredibly violent actually, but they're just filmed in a kind of slightly sanitized way. Like ?Indiana Jones?. Ants crawling inside somebody's body and eating them from the inside, that's incredibly disturbing but done in a kinda slightly cutesy way so you can give it to 12-year-olds. [?Wanted?] was never going to be like that and I thought, well, this is all quite cool and different. And even if it fails horribly, it was still trying to be something else.

Was it a challenge working out for the role?
I'm glad I did it. There were times where I just wanted to stop and do nothing else. But I had a great trainer named Glen Chapman who was a proper drill sergeant for me. Nice guy, but he made me do things that I didn't want to do and he made me sick quite a lot. It's good though, because [the producers] wanted their action hero to be a bit more buff and all that, and I wouldn't have got through four and a half months [of shooting] had I not been fitter and more healthy and in better shape than I usually am. I think I was capable of doing all the things in the film but not consistently with the high level intensity being sustained over four and a half months. Every day was like a 12, 13, maybe 14 hour day and a lot of it was taken up with stunts. That was quite grueling so I needed to be in better shape than I usually am.

What was the most grueling stunt?

There was a lot of wire stuff that ended up getting cut from the film. The whole ending of the film was different. There was a sequence where Morgan and I fall through, like, four levels of a building that is blowing up as we fall through the levels, fighting each other as we do it. That was four days on wires, in a harness, having your groin ruptured, and that's never fun. That was probably the most grueling thing, and then to find out that it has been cut out of the film... "Yeah, yeah, it didn't work, wasn't very good. It was really boring." You're like, what? "Yeah, we're reshooting it. We're doing this scene that takes like 20 minutes to film. That will end the film." What? Is there going to be a harness? No? All right.

Timur's not even putting it on the DVD.
Yeah, pretty much everything's gone. The only stuff that got cut from the film that you could put on the DVD is stuff that they never finished the CGI for. Other than that, pretty much everything that you see is what we shot. Edited in incredible and very imaginative ways though, I have to say. He's very clever in the edit suite.

Was there a backstory as to how you could shoot a gun so accurately, from so far away?
There was no science in it. It's completely science fiction. I don't know. I was dubious about that one as well but we have bullets that separate like shuttles. I was sold after I saw that.

Do you get excited about emotional scenes like panic attacks?
I love doing that. I felt that the character arc and his journey provided a lot of drama in this as well. I didn't feel like it was just a genre movie. I didn't feel it was just a comic book movie. I felt there was a sufficiently interesting character and someone who is in a very truthful and actually quite sad place to begin with in the film. So it was scenes like that that made me think, ?Well, I think the actor in me is not going to be unemployed for four and a half months while I do action,? do you know what I mean? I did feel that there was enough to do there to satisfy my acting urge as well. And all the panic attack stuff I loved. I love really physicalizing. I don't just mean by doing action scenes, but like playing Mr. Tumnus in ?Narnia?. It was such a physical role even though I wasn't doing stunts, it's still incredibly physical. And doing all the panic attack stuff, doing anything that?s emotionally instigated but physically manifested is just really, really interesting. It's a complete emotional response, isn't it? A panic attack. I loved all of that.

Was it hard to go from geek to assassin day to day?
Kind of, yeah. Also because I'd never done a film that took four and a half months to film. Well, ?Narnia? took five months or something like that but I was hardly in it. So when you shoot out of sequence, as you always do, say for two months, it's less spread out because you've only got two months of a shoot. And the film's still going to be the same length as ?Wanted? is, but when you spread it out over four months, there's even more opportunity for it to become disparate and disjointed. So you really have to be on top of your continuity and your script. You have to really ride the directors and the producers to kind of go, "Wait, wait, wait. While you're making that decision, what happens before, can I do that actually?" And sometimes you make an ass of yourself because you question them on everything, but sometimes you save stuff that could have gone really badly and really screw up your character's arc. And the story of the character and the story of his metamorphosis and why he changes is really what underpins the whole film and makes it something more than just action. So it was really important that we got that right.

And you went in and out of American accent? Is that easy?
It is. There's a couple of words that I found hard. ?Girlfriend? I found quite hard. Other than that, it was fine. I've got a voice coach that I use when I do American accents. She worked with everybody on ?Band of Brothers? but she also did ?Penelope? with me as well. She wasn't available for this but she's so good, I just couldn't imagine working with anybody else, so I didn't. I just thought I'd wing it. It worked out all right in the end but the one word that I had to fix in looping was ?girlfriend.?

How was it working with Angelina, having a kissing scene?
It's great. She's cool. I was quite nervous when I was told that she was in the film because I was cast before anybody else. Then I was told Morgan was going to be in it and I was quite shocked and stunned and wow. Then I was told Angelina was going to be in it and I thought, "Fuck, man, I really didn't think it was going to be that big." So I was quite nervous but within five, 10 minutes, you quickly realize that she's cool and chilled out and fairly willing to have a laugh at her own expense. And she was the one that, more so than anybody else probably, showed me the way to do [action] films. There's probably a part of me that was worried because I was in a new environment. It was a new genre for me. But she was the one that kind of just reminded me, "You know, you don't have to take it too seriously. We're not changing people's lives with a film like this. If you can't have fun when you make a film like this, what's the point in doing it?" And it was a really good point and that kind of kept me chilled out for the rest of film.

And she's got a great stunt double named Eunice Huthart who could rip my head off, really. She's smaller than me but she could kick seven colors of shit out of me easily, and she's one of the funniest ladies in the planet. She's just so nice. So we had a good time, really, really good time.

Had you read the comic book before?
No, no. It was weird because the guy who wrote it [Mark Millar] is from my hometown of Glasgow but no, I hadn't read it. I read it after I got the script.

Did you base any of your character on it?
Not really. He's physically and visually based on Eminem which is kind of weird. He really looks like Eminem. And wait a minute, Angelina's character is so clearly physically, visually based on Halle Berry. It was really strange. I think Eminem and Halle Berry were a bit annoyed about the graphic novel.

It was written with Eminem in mind.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's Eminem. The character has nothing to do with Eminem but I think it's a marketing ploy really. So that turned me off immediately. But the script is incredibly different from the graphic novel. So the first 30 minutes of the film, they share a real common genesis and then they kind of go off in tangents. But the guy who wrote the graphic novel, Mark Millar is really, really pleased with the film. He feels it does still have the sensibilities of the graphic novel, I think. Slightly less nihilistic but not that much.

You wanted to do all your own stunts?
I wanted to but they wouldn't let me. I did a lot of my own stunts, probably 50 or 60 per cent of my own stunts.

Did you get hurt?
I was really lucky. I never broke a single thing. I had a couple of sprains and a couple of twisted knees and ankles and stuff but nothing more than I'd get playing football. I got lots of bruises. I was bruised to hell all over but yeah, I was fine.

How was it fighting The Butcher?
That was fun actually. Those were some of my favorite fight scenes. The ones with the butcher and the ones with Angelina where she's beating me up. I preferred those fights to the gunfights actually. If you've got a gun, there's no drama in it. There's nothing better than seeing two people physically touch each other. That's great fun. A gun's like pyow pyow. I'm behind this table and you're behind that wall. Pyow pyow. How exciting. So I loved fighting The Butcher and he's quite tough actually, Dato. He was great.

Did you have fun in Prague?
I'm a veteran of Prague. I've spent probably? I think I counted it once. I think I've spent 15 months of my life in Prague. And I love it very much but I was in every day of this job and I couldn't afford to go out really too much. We were doing 12 to 14 hour days, six days a week and I'm hardly out of the film. I mean, there's a couple of scenes I'm not in so I was there every day. But yeah, we got taken out, we got to blow off some steam. The makeup girls particularly and one of the wardrobe ladies and the stunt team were kind of my support network on this job. They were great. And Common as well actually. He was particularly good fun to hang out with. He was a nice guy.

Are you always required to mangle Marc Warren's face? [Marc Warren played The Repairman in Wanted]
That's true actually, you're right. You're very right. I totally forgot about that. Yeah, I did a job once with Marc way back called ?State of Play? and in one scene, I kind of watch as David Morrissey beats his face to a bloody mess. He ends up having to have reconstructive surgery on his face after it, that character. Yeah, so it was nice to turn the tables. Or actually get my chance to beat him up and not just stand there watching.

Have you heard anything about a second series of State of Play?
No, I haven't. I mean, we were going to make a second series the year after and it never happened for some reason. Paul [Abbott, the writer] got busy doing other things and writing movies I think, stuff like that. Yeah, wanted to make one immediately. It just never materialized, which I was gutted about. The movie then happened and all that kind of stuff. Maybe the movie happening will instigate the BBC wanting to make another series.

Were you approached for the movie?
I got sent the script and my character was in the script and they were wondering if Bill Nighy and I would be interested in reprising our roles, but they were small parts and they ended up being cut pretty much completely. I think Bill's role was still in it but he's now played by Dame Helen Mirren. And my part just had to go because when you take six hours of television and put it down into two hours of film, you just can't investigate the broad range of all the characters you can do with six hours, you know. So it's really just about the three main guys and then you've got a couple of interesting figures surrounding them, like the editor played by Dame Helen.

Did you ever have a mundane job you hated?
I had a very mundane job. I don't know if I hated it. There were nice people working there and stuff but yeah, I worked as a baker for two years. I was a training confectioner, so the guy standing beside me who was the grand master confectioner, he would in a very kind of Zen fashion make big cakes and gateaus and wedding cakes and birthday cakes and things like that. I'd happily jam my sponge then cream a thing. I did that and that was like a conveyor belt of cream cakes and jam cakes. It was very banal.

So you could identify with your character?
Yeah, I totally can identify. You know, I loved where this character started. It's a silly adventure, an action piece of entertainment, but the character starts in a very truthful, sad place. I think he's a proper sufferer of postmodern depression and apathy. I think that?s a condition that's all too evident amongst young men and women, you know who've got fine lives, that can't bring themselves to smile or feel better about their horrible existence. I thought that was quite an interesting place for your everyman to start from.

Can you confirm or deny ?The Hobbit? rumors?
I can completely deny it. It just seems to have all been rumors.

Nobody talked to you?
No, not at all. Neither Peter Jackson nor Guillermo Del Toro have gotten in contact.

Would you want to play Bilbo?
I think I'd need to see the script first. From what I hear them saying, they don't even have a script. So you'd have to see if you're right for the part, although I'm sure if I was wrong for the part, they wouldn't even bother asking so who knows. We'll see.

Was there a movie when you were young that made you want to be an actor?
No, not really. I watched a lot of films when I was a kid. We had a VHS player and we used it a lot. But no, I never really considered acting. There's no like glass ceiling that I thought I just can't get through, I can't make it. I just never really considered it a possibility. It was something that happened to other people really. I didn't really think about it. It wasn't until someone gave me a job in a film that I kind of went, "Wow, this is an option? All right. Okay." Then it took me about two or three years to decide yeah, I'll give it a bash and I went to theater school.

Was the stunt on the train the hardest one for you in the film?
The train and the gimbal were quite difficult. The whole vertical stuff and climbing up and all that. That was quite fun but difficult. The most difficult thing was probably the car. Jumping on the bonnet of the car. Most difficult but also the most enjoyable. There's a car coming along at 30 miles an hour and I kind of rendezvous with it in the middle of the road and jump on the bonnet and then it hits the breaks and I go flying off, and another car smashes into the back. That was all real. There was no wires, there was no mats. I was padded up but that was all real. I can't believe they let me do that because they wouldn't let me jump through a pane of sugar glass window. Which would scratch my face at most, maybe not even that, and they wouldn't let me do that but they'd let me jump on a moving vehicle. That is so beyond anything I could understand. The insurance people were out of their minds that day, I think. But I didn't argue with them. I thought I'd give it a bash. But then just before they'd say action, I was kind of like, "I can't believe they're letting me do this. I'm slightly terrified now."

How was it, balancing the drama and humor?
That was totally fun. I mean, I'm guilty of trying to find the humor in even the most serious of films that I've done and it always gets edited out so it was kind of a joy to be in an environment where the director and producers were saying, "No, no, no, try. You have an idea? Go for it. You want to fall down? Great, cool. There's a rubber chicken over there if you want to get it in the frame. Here's a banana skin."

What did the wax bath feel like?
Kind of groovy. It was kind of weird. They put a board over me to lock me into the bath so that my hands went through and my head went through but it was flat against me and I couldn't move. That was horrible. I was in there for a couple hours at a time and then they just poured hot wax over the entire thing.

Real hot wax?
It was real hot wax. It would go over my hands, it would go over my face which was really uncomfortable and it got very, very hot and it went in my ears and stuff. The most annoying thing about it is I got an ear infection for about two weeks because of that hot wax.

Are you looking forward to superhero roles coming your way?
No, I don't think so. I hope not. I hope it doesn't become all I get offered. I did this film for a challenge and something different, something new and so hopefully, the next thing I do will be an example of that and something different, new and challenging. But again, not just different from ?Wanted,? hopefully different from the other stuff I've done as well.

Are you playing Young Tolstoy in Last Station?No. I'm in The Last Station but I play the secretary, Valentin Fedoravich Bulgako. Tolstoy is played by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren is playing his wife and Paul Giamatti's playing his cohort. It's a bloody brilliant cast.

What is your greatest fear?
Uh, The Exorcist. That film really terrifies me. I think it's just the Catholic in me coming out.

For more Wanted fun, check out our interview with the cast and director, and our review of the film!