Age: 47
male
James McAvoy (born April 21, 1979) is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his feature film career began. His notable television work includes the thriller State of Play, science fiction miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune and the channel 4s BAFTA award-winning series Shameless (British TV series) He has performed in several West End productions and has received four nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, and has also done voice work for animated films including Gnomeo & Juliet, its sequel Sherlock Gnomes, and Arthur Christmas. In 2003, McAvoy appeared in a lead role in Bollywood Queen, then in another lead role as Rory in Inside I'm Dancing in 2004. This was followed by a supporting role, as the faun Mr. Tumnus, in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). His performance in Kevin Macdonald's drama The Last King of Scotland (2006) garnered him several award nominations, including the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. The critically acclaimed romantic drama war film Atonement (2007) earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination. He later appeared as a newly trained assassin in the action thriller Wanted (2008). In 2011, McAvoy portrayed Professor Charles Xavier in the superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018), and Dark Phoenix (2019). McAvoy starred in the crime comedy-drama film Filth (2013), for which he won Best Actor in the British Independent Film Awards. In 2016, he portrayed Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with 23 alternate personalities, in M. Night Shyamalan's Split, for which he received critical acclaim, and later reprised the role for the sequel Glass (2019). Since 2019, he has portrayed Lord Asriel Belacqua in the BBC/HBO fantasy series His Dark Materials.
It is 1414 and the Czech priest and reformer Jan Hus goes to the Church Council in Constance to defend his revolutionary ideas. For the journey he receives a Glejt from King Sigismund of Luxembourg himself, who is to guarantee his safe journey. But upon arrival, Hus is arrested and put on trial. During this he is condemned as a heretic, and subsequently handed over to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake when he refused to recant his teachings. Jan Hus is burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. This news soon reaches the Bohemian Kingdom and causes a storm of resentment among the Bohemian nobility and common people. The result is the outbreak of the so-called Hussite Revolution, which culminates in the Prague Defenestration on 30 July 1419, when a mob of radical Hussites led by the preacher Jan Želivský throws the Catholic councillors out of the windows of Prague's New Town Hall. When the Czech King Wenceslas IV learns of these events, he suffers a massive stroke and soon dies from the effects. After the death of Wenceslas IV, the only rightful heir to the Czech throne was King Sigismund of Hungary and Rome, who decides to mount a crusade against the Hussites. Jan Žižka, a Hussite military leader, will lead the Hussite army. This is the beginning of the Hussite Wars.
