James McAvoy is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's The Near Room and continued to make mostly television appearances until the late 2000s. His notable television work includes State of Play, Shameless, and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Besides screen acting, McAvoy has appeared on stage with Three Days of Rain in 2009, and in 2011 he did voice work for animated films including Gnomeo & Juliet and Arthur Christmas. He is notable for playing Charles Xavier in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he will reprise in X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014.