James McAvoy is one of the best actors to come out of Scotland, starring in big blockbuster hits like the X-Men franchise and M. Night Shyamalan's Split.
The talented actor scored a role in his first feature film before he even finished high school, as he starred in the 1995 film The Near Room, before going onto study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The Glasgow-born actor is celebrating his 43rd birthday today, as we take a look at some of his best moments across his career.
The X-Men favourite has starred in a variety of beloved projects from his break-out role as Mr Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia, to one of his most impressive films My Son - where he improved the entirety of his performance.
In honour of the treasured actor, let's have a look at some of James's funniest moments..
Bake Off innuendos
Viewers couldn't help but love James' innuendos as he appeared on the Stand Up To Cancer special of Great British Bake Off in 2021.
Fans could barely keep it together as he talked about ‘stiff peaks’ and 'wet pastry' while sucking on his finger as his tart was in the oven.
Seeing him winking and meowing at his snow leopard creation, a tribute to his Dark Material character’s daemon Stelmaria, in his tight t-shirt proved to be too much for viewers .
He also said in a now much-shared meme: "I love you pussycat. You and I we're done."
James said of his pastry repeatedly: "It feels a bit wet. I'm going to say this until the production team tell me what to do."
He added fuel to the fire when he talked about his meringues as he created a raspberry and lemon meringue pie, and he declared proudly "my peaks are stiff".
And when he sucked on his finger it was proverbial icing on the cake for most viewers.
James beat off Dame Kelly Holmes, David Baddiel and Anne-Marie in the Channel 4 baking show in aid of the charity Stand Up To Cancer, and even offered people rum during the show to 'help the baking go down'.
He said of his stint on the show: "Hopefully we can raise a good amount of money for Stand Up To Cancer. That, of course, is the most important thing.
"Me getting to live out my fantasies in the Bake Off tent is not important but it was a lovely thing to get to do."
Lying about his pal's car accident
A now infamous tale, James McAvoy once lied about his friend being in a serious car accident so he could get out of an audition for Queen musical We Will Rock You.
The X-Men star was asked to meet casting directors for the hit West End show in London.
James said he realised on the way to the audition that he didn't want to be in musicals and made up a story to allow him to escape.
He said: "I just suddenly got hit by this realisation that 'I don't really want to be in musicals, it's not who I am, I think I want to do something else.' I just went 'I can't do this' but I went into the audition because I thought 'I can't not show up either.'
He continued: "I strummed the guitar for the beginning of my audition and then, proper actor that I am, burst into tears and said 'I'm really sorry, I've just come from a terrible accident, my pal got knocked down by a car'.
"I said I had got him to the hospital in the ambulance and rushed right there but told them I wasn't in the right headspace for it.
"They were like 'Go, go, you must go and be with him.' I was like 'Thank you,' and I hightailed it out of there with my guitar.
"Then my agent got a call saying 'We loved him, he was great, such passion, if he wants to come back tomorrow we will have him back'.
"I had to confess that I had put on a whole performance in order to get myself out of there. She went 'Right I'm never putting you up for a musical again, you pain in the a**e'.
"She made me promise her that I would never do anything like that ever again and I never did."
James was asked to sing two songs and play guitar for his audition and agreed despite not really knowing how to.
Tackling Karen Gillan in The Bubble
The Bubble is Scots actress Karen Gillan's latest Netflix film, which sees a variety of celebrity cameos - but one in particular from James McAvoy.
When Karen Gillan’s character, Carol, runs off of the set of Cliff Beasts 6 in order to escape its suffocating confines, he suddenly appears and runs after her, then successfully tackles her to the ground.
James reveals that he was confused about why she was running, then becomes insulted when she makes a joke about referring to him as “Professor X.”
The actor then defends his career by saying that he’s played many other roles than Professor X in the X-Men franchise, which is actually fitting for real-world conversations theorising his return to the character.
Other cameos in this film include John Cena, Daisy Ridley, Beck, and John Lithgow.
Using his granddad's razor
The actor appeared on Graham Norton to promote his movie Glass in 2019 alongside Sarah Paulson and Richard E Grant.
But the conversation switched to James' penchant for shaving his head in his latest role and as Charles Xavier in X-Men.
They soon dived into the first time he started shaving entirely, with 13-year-old James not entirely convinced of a future where there’s pubes sprouting from his nether regions.
Speaking about pubes on the show, James said: "I basically got enough of them where I thought, “I don’t know if I want this for my future”.
"So I was bored one day and I saw my grandad’s razor and I thought, “I’ll have a bang at that.” And I started to shave them off," but he nipped himself with the razor drawing some blood.
However, the actor didn't do a good enough job at cleaning up leaving his grandparents concerned that he'd used the razor to self arm, as they demanded to see his wrists.
He explained the ordeal taught him a valuable lesson for why you shouldn’t "shave your balls" with grandad’s razor.
"After they collected themselves, my granny sort of took me aside and explained to me things about hygiene and how he’s going to be using that on his face and stuff like that," he added.
"Good point, granny," Norton joked.
Patriotic SNL monologue
James hosted Saturday Night Live in 2019, and fans absolutely loved his patriotic monologue to kick the show off.
He speaks about being confused with another famous Scots actor, Ewan McGregor, and touches on a national delicacy - the deep fried mars bar.
He began: "I don’t know, some of the more eagle eyed may have noticed I’m wearing a kilt. It’s not a skirt, it’s a kilt. And it’s actually very masculine.
"It’s here to signify our family, and I wear it because my calves are shredded. Plus I’m Scottish.
"In our country or in this country even, people seem to recognise me from movies like “Star Wars”, like “Christopher Robin” and “Trainspotting”.
"But those people would be wrong. Because that’s Ewan McGregor. He’s the other Scottish actor. I think it’s actually easy to tell us apart. My eyes are blue. And he’s got more money than me.
"This might be the first time you heard my native accident. Because in most of my movies my accident is either English crumpet or American hot dog."
"I’m actually very proud to be from Scotland," the actor continued. "For anybody who’s not familiar with my homeland, I thought I’d give you a quick little primer.
"Scotland is a part of Great Britain, located north of the wall. That’s where the original wildlings came from.
"Lots of great inventors are from Scotland. The telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish.
"The television invented by John John Logie Baird, Scottish.
"And the deep fried mars bar invented by Wee Patrick from down the road who is stoned out of his nut, Scottish.
"I hope you all have learned something about my beloved Scotland."
Happy Birthday James McAvoy!
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