Return of the Mac as A-list actor hits stage in hometown
James Mcavoy’s acclaimed starring role in Cyrano de Bergerac has made his homecoming one of theatre’s hottest tickets.
And he is looking forward to it just as much as the audience.
“It’s where I was born, where I grew up. I’ve still got a place there and all my family there. I see myself as a Glaswegian and a Londoner – a Glaswegian Londoner,” he recently told The Guardian.
The Theatre Royal, where the nine sold-out shows will be staged, is across the road from Mcavoy’s old college, the Royal Conservatoire, where he donated money in 2015 for a 10-year scholarship programme. He says the scheme is more about introducing young people to the arts than it is about all of the students going on to become actors.
“I don’t really care if all the people who have been through the scholarship process end up becoming actors or not,” he said. “It would be a symptom of things getting better if our stages and screens continued to be diverse for the next 40, 50 or 100 years. But being exposed to art at an early age is not about creating artists – it’s about creating better people who are more able to communicate and feel worth something.
“Art, in all forms, allows you to see beyond your physical confines. If you do that then anything’s possible.”
Despite his incredible movie success, 42-year-old Mcavoy believes the stage gives him a truer sense of storytelling.
“I do think I am at heart a storyteller,” he told the New York Times. “And I think I get to tell stories better on stage. The work I do in film and TV is more interested in capturing moments of truthfulness that some other storyteller then edits together and puts music on and changes the story, or doesn’t, or chooses how I tell the story, cuts my bit of that story out. I still love film and television acting, don’t get me wrong. But on stage, it’s just a purer form of storytelling.”
Mcavoy says he hopes the audience in New York, where the tour concludes, can understand his accent – something that won’t be an issue in Glasgow.
“My accent’s quite strong,” he said. “You just go, I hope they can hear through that and not go, ‘What is this strange noise coming out of this man’s mouth?’
“Because it would be a shame. It’s the clearest storytelling I’ve ever been involved in, bar none — film, TV, theatre, whatever.”