James McAvoy says a Band of Brothers co-star and his friends pointed and laughed at him for three minutes on his first day as a working actor.
The Scottish star told Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live” that the slight came during filming of the 2001 HBO World War II miniseries, on a crowded bar scene with much of the ensemble present. McAvoy, now 47, said it happened on his first day out of acting school while playing Private First Class James W. Miller in episode four, “Replacements.”
Page Six reported that Cohen showed a cast photo featuring Donnie Wahlberg, Kirk Acevedo, Scott Grimes, Neal McDonough, Adam James, Frank John Hughes, and Ross McCall. McAvoy said the man who led the mockery was one of the people in that picture. He ruled out David Schwimmer.
McAvoy did not name the co-star. He described the moment in plain terms.
"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 got him and his buddies to just stand pointing at me and laugh at me for, like, three minutes."
He gave that first day a two out of 10. The rest of the job, he said, earned a nine.
McAvoy offered a simple reason for the cold welcome. Many of the other actors had already been on the production for months.
"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."
In his account, the hierarchy on set was already set. He arrived late, with more dialogue, and paid for it in public.
Not everyone piled on. McAvoy said Dexter Fletcher and Robin Laing pulled him aside and told him, “Come hang with us, man.” That invitation, he suggested, helped steady the day.
Cohen called the pointing-and-laughing episode “terrible.”
Page Six sought comment from representatives for Wahlberg, Acevedo, Grimes, McDonough, James, Hughes, McCall, and a name listed as Barantini. The reps did not immediately respond.
McAvoy has built a long career since that early credit, including “X-Men: First Class” and a Golden Globe nomination, and he treated the old slight as a story, not a crusade. He also looked back on other early work with more warmth. His 1995 film debut, “The Near Room,” left him “terrified,” he said, yet he still called the period “amazing.”
A later stretch on “The Chronicles of Narnia” scored even higher. “I played the horny goat guy,” he said, describing roughly six months in New Zealand with only about 20 days of work. Hiking and camping filled the rest. He rated that gig a 10 out of 10.
The Band of Brothers memory is different. It is short, specific, and still sharp decades later: three minutes of pointing and laughing on day one, from a castmate he still will not name on television.
Hollywood preaches kindness in public. On a closed set, the pecking order still shows up fast, and the professionals keep working anyway.
