It happens in everyone's career. Get a few nominations for political dramas and period pieces, then do a big budget action movie. James McAvoy stars in Wanted as an office clerk who discovers he is a super assassin. Trained by Angelina Jolie in how to bend bullets, McAvoy got his first taste of the comic book world.

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Crave Online: Had you read the comic book before?

James McAvoy: No, no. It was weird because the guy who wrote it's from my hometown of Glasgow but no, I hadn't read it. I read it after I got the script.

Crave Online: Did you base any of your character on it?

James McAvoy: Not really. Visually, he's physically and visually based on Eminem which is kind of weird for a start to start reading it going, "That character looks like Eminem." He really looks like Eminem. And wait a minute, Angelina's character is so clearly physically, visually based on Halle Berry. This is so strange. It was really strange. I think Eminem and Halle Berry were a bit annoyed about the graphic novel.

Crave Online: It was written with Eminem in mind.

James McAvoy: 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, more than anything else. So I don't know, that turned me off immediately. "I don't know how useful this is going to be." 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 even though, he still feels it's, it does still have the sensibilities of the graphic novel I think. Slightly less nihilistic but not that much.

Crave Online: How was working with Angelina, having a kissing scene?

James McAvoy: It's great. She's cool. I was quite nervous when I got told that she was in the film because I was cast before anybody else. Then I got 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, "F*ck, 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 as wherever else there's a joke. And she was the one that more so than anybody else probably showed me the way to do these films. I was coming in and I don't know, there's probably a part of me that was worried because I was in a new environment. It was a new genre and slightly on the lookout for being f*cked if you'll excuse my French. 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 the time after that. And she's got a great stunt double called Eunice Huthart who could rip my head off really. She's smaller than me but she could kick seven colors of sh*t 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.

Crave Online: Did you want to do all your own stunts?

James McAvoy: I wanted to but they wouldn't let me. I did a lot of my own stunts, probably 50 or 60% of my own stunts.

Crave Online: Did you get hurt?

James McAvoy: I was really lucky, man. 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.

Crave Online: How hard was the fight scene with the butcher?

James McAvoy: 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. The gunfights were all kind of, gunfights are just like well, if you've got a gun, there's no drama in it. There's nothing better than going, 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.

Crave Online: Did you have fun in Prague?

James McAvoy: 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.

Crave Online: Are you required to mangle Marc Warren's face whenever you costar together?

James McAvoy: That's true actually, you're right. You're very right. Yeah, that's right. God, I forgot about that. Oh God, 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 just 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.

Crave Online: Have you heard anything about a second series of State of Play?

James McAvoy: 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 got busy doing other things and writing movies I think, stuff like that. Yeah, wanted to make one immediately. Just it 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.

Crave Online: Were you approached for the movie?

James McAvoy: 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's still in it but he's now played by Dame Helen Mirren who I've just worked with really. 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.

Crave Online: Did you ever have a mundane job you hated?

James McAvoy: I had a very mundane job. I don't know if I hated it but yeah, and there was nice people working there and stuff but yeah, I worked as a baker for two years. That was kind of, 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.

Crave Online: So you could identify?

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

Crave Online: Can you confirm or deny The Hobbit?

James McAvoy: I can completely deny it. It just seems to have all been rumors.

Crave Online: Nobody talked to you?

James McAvoy: No, not at all. Neither Peter Jackson nor Guillermo Del Toro have got in contact.

Crave Online: Would you want to play Bilbo?

James McAvoy: 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.

Crave Online: What was the hardest stunt to do in Wanted?

James McAvoy: The train and the gimbal was 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. 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. So beyond anything I could understand and the insurance people were out of their mind I think that day. But I didn't argue with them. I just thought I'd give it a bash. But then just before they'd say action, you are kind of like, "I can't believe they're letting me do this. I'm slightly terrified now."

Crave Online: How hard was it to balance the drama and humor?

James McAvoy: 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."

Crave Online: What did the wax bath feel like?

James McAvoy: 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 hand 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.

Crave Online: It was real hot wax?

James McAvoy: It was real hot wax which 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 your ears and stuff. The most annoying thing about it is I got an ear infection for about two weeks because of that hot wax.