James McAvoy recently opened up about his first meeting with the celebrity he was in love with.
THE Don't speak badly star stopped by Watch what happens live! Earlier this week, to promote his upcoming film, he was asked who his celebrity crush was and whether he'd ever met them.
McAvoy revealed that it was Jennifer Aniston and that he had met her years earlier, but noted, “It wasn't that great,” before quickly clarifying, “Not because she's not great.
“I was at a party when I was really young, about 22, in Los Angeles, and I met Lucy Liu, and Lucy Liu was really, really nice to me, and she was like, 'Come meet my friends,'” she recalled of her first meeting with the Morning show star.
THE Shazam! The Fury of the Gods The actress took him to her friends, including Aniston.
“I parked right next to Jennifer Aniston,” he said. “And just like [Liu] was like, 'Hey guys, meet my new friend James,' and instead of saying that, she was pulled aside by a guy she went to high school with. She walked away, and I was just standing there with all these people going, 'Hey, what's up, I'm new in town.'”
Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “So you're Jennifer Aniston and you're in Friends,” which wasn’t ideal. “It was tough,” he added, “but she was lovely.”
In a separate interview on Happy Sad ConfusedTHE Divided The actor also revealed that he was almost cast as Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter films. He auditioned for the role early in his career, he recalled, and the studio wanted to sign him and 10 other actors to cast one of them later.
“It was a really strange thing,” he said. The X-Men the star told host Josh Horowitz. “And they offered me quite a bit of money. For me, at the time, it was a lot of money. It was about £40,000 or something like that. I had done very little work and I wouldn't have been able to work for about seven months, I think.”
Although it was something he would have considered, he consulted his agent, Ruth Young, who still represents him. She told him, “Absolutely not.” Instead, he ended up doing a play in which he was “booed by a homophobic gentleman.”
“I did that and I got paid I think £275 a week,” McAvoy said, adding that he had no regrets. “It was part of my education. I was actually learning and doing all this.”