James McAvoy reveals why he turned down Harry Potter role despite being offered 'ton of money'

Scottish actor James McAvoy has revealed he was offered "a ton of money" to star in ' Harry Potter ' as a young actor.

The 45 year old, who was just beginning his career at the time, auditioned for the role of Tom Riddle in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. However, he was advised against accepting the offer due to uncertainty about his future involvement in the franchise.

On the 'Happy Sad Confused' podcast, McAvoy shared: "The very first movie, I think it was - who is the - is it Tom Riddle in the first one, yeah? But he's like in it... for like a scene in a flashback or something like that? And they had - I simply remember it was right in the beginning of my career."

"I auditioned for it and I think they wanted to put me on a retainer. And they offered me something like - it was crazy, I'd hardly done any work - and me and I think maybe 10 other actors or something like that - they wanted to put us on retainer so that they could hold us and keep us to choose later."

The 'Speak No Evil' actor described the offer as a "really strange thing" and a significant amount for someone new to the industry. He continued: "For me, at that time, it was a ton of money, it was like £40,000 or something like that, and I'd done very little work." But taking the retainer would have meant James "wouldn't be able to do any work for about seven months", leading his agent Ruth Young to advise him against it.

Instead, he chose a less lucrative theatre job, which he credits as "the making" of him as an actor. He shared: "She was like we're going to go do something else, and I ended up doing the play [where] I got booed by a homophobic gentleman. I did that instead and I think got paid £275 a week. But it was part of the making of me, and I actually got in acting work. I was actually learning and doing all that."

Despite the buzz around a TV adaptation of 'Harry Potter', James doesn't seem too keen on jumping on board. When quizzed about whether he'd consider auditioning for the series, he remarked: "I don't know if there's anything that I'm really missing in terms of what I've covered. I don't think I've done enough sci-fi, just because I love it. I don't think I've done enough comedy but I've been able to be funny in things that aren't funny. Always trying to bring the gags."

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