One of James McAvoy‘s earliest jobs as an actor came with some mixed feelings.
The “Atonement” star reminisced about shooting an episode of the HBO series “Band of Brothers” in a “Watch What Happens Live” appearance this week. Back in the early 2000s, McAvoy was a young drama school graduate who booked a role on the World War II miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. His role, Pvt. James Miller, only lasted one episode but gave McAvoy plenty of lines in the midst of a crowded ensemble — and it turns out not everyone was happy about that.
“On my first day on set,” he said, “there was a ton of actors… It was one of those scenes with everybody in it, and we’re all at a bar.” “I had a scene. And all these guys were in it for nine months, 10 months, and they get one line in one episode, and one line 10 episodes later. They were all pissed. I come in for one episode, and I’ve got an arc and scenes. I’ve got tons of lines.”
Host Andy Cohen had shown a picture of the “Band of Brothers” ensemble, and McAvoy confirmed that someone in the photo singled him out. “So, one of the guys in that picture decided to bully me — on my first day as a professional actor out of acting school,” he continued. “He got him and his buddies to just stand pointing at me and laugh at me for like three minutes.”
McAvoy noted that he wasn’t entirely isolated: Dexter Fletcher (who went on to direct films including “Rocketman”) and Robin Laing “took me aside, and they were like, ‘Come hang with us, man.'” McAvoy rated his overall experience on the set as “a nine, but that day, it felt like a two.”
Airing in the fall of 2001, “Band of Brothers” was a critical and commercial hit, winning multiple Emmys, including best miniseries, and a Peabody Award, and giving rise to the Hanks-Spielberg collaboration on wartime TV series that has since included 2010’s “The Pacific” and 2024’s “Masters of the Air.”
Many of McAvoy’s “Band of Brothers” castmates have gone on to have long careers across television and film, including Colin Hanks, Damian Lewis, and Ron Livingston. Four years after “Band of Brothers,” McAvoy’s acting career ignited with his role as Mr. Tumnus in “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”