James McAvoy made his acting debut at the young age of 15, and since then he's landed a number of big roles in the movie business. Many people first remember him playing Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, before he later took over as Charles Xavier in the X-Men series.
More recently, he's starred in Split and its follow-up Glass, while this year he'll be starring in X-Men sequel Dark Phoenix, It: Chapter Two, and a BBC adaptation of the His Dark Materials book series. But before we get a chance to see him in any of those upcoming projects, we saw him at the Academy Awards this Sunday, where he presented the Oscar for Sound Editing alongside Danai Gurira.
At this pont, his suit was spotless, but it wouldn't take long for the Scottish actor to turn it into a who's-who of Hollywood. By the time he got to the Vanity Fair after-party that evening, he was covered in autographs from all the celebs he could find.
Posting a photo of the shirt to Instagram, he wrote:
“Went to the Oscars. Presented. Got mugged by sharpie wielding celebrities. #thuglebrity I’m sure my shirt is going to be defaced by more of these entitled graffiti mentalists as the night goes on.”
He ended up getting signatures from Michael B. Jordan, Frances McDormand, Brie Larson Amy Adams, Karamo Brown, Charlize Theron, Sarah Paulson, and Samuel L. Jackson to name just a few. But it wasn't all just some drunken Oscar-pades, as he later revealed.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, he explained how he had found a Sharpie backstage, took note of all the famous people that surrounded him, and had an idea: he'd get them to sign his shirt, then auction it off to raise money for charity.
"I don't quite know what we're going to do with it. This was off the cuff and alcohol-fueled," he said, though he added he has worked with charities UNICEF and Retrak in the past, so it's likely he could find a way to get the money where it's needed - and I'm betting there are a lot of people out there who would pay top dollar for the shirt.
The latest project in the headlines from McAvoy is the upcoming series His Dark Materials, after a trailer for the book adaptation was released this month. Philip Pullman’s book trilogy - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - follows Lyra, an orphan whose search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot.
We got our first glimpse of McAvoy, who will be playing Lord Asriel, in the trailer below:
The actor will be taking over from Daniel Craig, who portrayed the character in the ill-fated film adaptation of the first book, The Golden Compass. He will also be joined by Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby, Clarke Peters as The Master and Dafne Keen as Lyra.
His Dark Materials will likely air in late 2019.
