James McAvoy Freaked out When He Thought He’d Be Playing Eminem in the Film ‘Wanted’

Eminem once served as a huge inspiration for a character in a film that starred X-Men actor James McAvoy. But when McAvoy first learned exactly how heavily his character was originally based on Eminem, it raised immediate concerns in the movie star.

James McAvoy starred in the 2008 film ‘Wanted’

McAvoy is familiar with starring in films based on comic book properties. He’s well-known for portraying the iconic Professor X in the rebooted X-Men franchise, for instance. But before X-Men, he starred in another comic book adaptation by lending his talents to Wanted. The movie saw him starring alongside Angelina Jolie as an office worker who discovers he’s the son of a super-assassin.

It was a film he’d gotten the traditional way through auditioning. But McAvoy wasn’t sure for the longest time that he’d landed the gig.

“I screen tested. They flew me over here, and I had to do a couple of auditions, and then they didn’t give me the part for quite a long time—for like 6 months. Then they came back and said do you want to do it, and I was like, ‘What’s changed?’ They said, ‘Nothing. We always wanted you.’ You’re like, ‘Did you?’ So, yeah,” McAvoy once told Collider.

James McAvoy freaked out when he thought he’d be playing Eminem in ‘Wanted’

The film version of Wanted took significant creative liberties when it came to adapting its source material. McAvoy’s character wasn’t just based on the son of a super-assassin, but a supervillain as well. In the graphic novel, that supervillain was intentionally illustrated to look exactly like megastar rapper Eminem.

When the Split star read the source material to prepare for his screentest, he was taken aback by the resemblance.

“I read the script, and then before I flew out to the screen test, I was sent the graphic novel as well. Which totally freaked me out because I opened in, and on page one went, ‘What? Eminem? Are you having a laugh? Am I going to be playing that?’ I just couldn’t quite understand. And I thought, well, I’m not going to be going in doing an impression of Eminem,” McAvoy once told Comics Continuum.

McAvoy managed to get over the shock of the role. But he confided that interpreting a character so heavily rooted in Eminem’s likeness provided a unique challenge.

“It’s difficult because the character has been based so obviously, at least visually, on Eminem, I feel like I need to get away from that because I feel that’s something I’ll never achieve,” McAvoy said in a resurfaced interview with Superhero Hype. “I feel that I’d like to take the essence of what [Mark Millar’s] done and fill it. What else a live-action thing does, as opposed to a comic, is that there’s some things that really work well in the translation and some things that don’t.”

‘Wanted’ creator claimed that Eminem was interested in doing the movie before rumors got out of hand

Before the film made its debut, there were rumors circling around the internet that Eminem was close to being cast in the project. Eventually, someone in Eminem’s camp shot down that he was involved in Wanted at all. Comic book writer Mark Millar, who was the brainchild of the graphic novel, offered more insight into the speculation. According to Millar, Eminem truly was interested in doing the film but may have changed his mind.

“What I’d heard was that it was true, and he then denied it,” Millar once told GQ (via Comic Book Movie). “What happened was that some online gossip guy said, ‘Millar pretended to Universal that Eminem wanted to play the lead role, sold the movie, and then it turned out it was all made up.’ Universal work with Eminem. They would know!”

Millar asserted that Eminem’s interest in Wanted didn’t go beyond a quick conversation with his agent.

“What happened was the agent that I had at the time knew Eminem’s agent and had said, ‘He’s looking for a movie to do, and he’s expressed interest in Wanted.’ And that was it. But the story went out on the Sunday Times saying, ‘Eminem considering playing the lead in Wanted.’ Within 24 hours, it was all over the internet all over the world: ‘Eminem has signed up to Wanted for a reported $20m.’ It was like starting a fire,” Millar recalled.