"Trance" (Fox Searchlight) - Week 2

$925,000 in 438 theaters; PSA (per-screen average): $2,112; Cumulative: $1,100,00

A very quick expansion for Danny Boyle's tricky London-set thriller resulted in a mediocre PSA for this still modest number of theaters, suggesting this may not have a long shelf life or much further expansion.

What comes next: Unless word of mouth kicks in quickly, this doesn't look to get a fraction of the gross his last two films got.

Into the Blue

James McAvoy may be Scottish, but he's no cad. Mickey Rapkin finds that if those baby blues don't get ya, McAvoy's earnest yet cheeky charm will.

BY Mickey Rapkin April 29, 2013

ELLE: You considered entering the priesthood as a young man. Were you prepared to take a vow of celibacy?

James McAvoy: Yeah, I thought I’d give it a buzz. I wanted to be a missionary and work abroad, but girls started to become a bigger part of my life around the time I lost interest in the priesthood.

ELLE: Have you always been good with women?

JM: Girls didn’t really take much interest in me until I was about 14. But I knew how to talk to them very quickly. What I figured out—that my friends didn’t—was you have to talk to women like you’re not constantly trying to have sex with them. That seemed to work.

ELLE: You ride motorcycles. Did that start as a way to impress women?

JM: No. You should see my motorcycle. Google "2001 blue Honda Hornet 600" and you’ll see how uncool I look on my bike.

ELLE: You’re famous for your blue eyes. Was there ever a time they got you out of trouble?

JM: Well, I am an actor. And I can cry at the drop of a hat.

ELLE: You’ve faked crying to get out of an argument? Give me the story.

JM: I can’t. It would make certain people feel bad.

ELLE: Has a woman ever made you actually cry?

JM: Yeah, totally. Tons. Because we split up, or because they cheated on me. I’ve cried a lot because of women. I cry a lot, as a person.

ELLE: Who would cheat on you?

JM: Everybody’s been cheated on, haven’t they?

ELLE: Did you learn something from infidelity?

JM: Just don’t try to flog a dead horse.

ELLE: That’s very evolved thinking. What were your early relationships like?

JM: I learned something from a string of failed relationships. You don’t see a pattern quickly. You see it over time. I learned to stop jumping in at the first sign of attraction.

ELLE: Meaning you would get too serious too quickly?

JM: No, no. As soon as you’re attracted to someone, you go for it—whether or not it’s a good idea. Basically, just going out and getting laid. But I finally met the person I’m in love with and want to spend the rest of my life with.

ELLE: You got married in 2006. How did you know it was right?

JM: You never know it’s the right one. I don’t think there is a "right" one. There are many people you could fall in love with forever. Marriage is an ongoing thing, man. You continue to work at it. But it’s joyful. And joyous. I don’t care if people are living without a marriage certificate. It’s just about people, in some way, saying to each other, I commit to you. I will help you in this life. We’re not in this room for the next 20 years by accident. We’re here because we mean it.

ELLE: What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done?

JM: I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of stupid shit. I think the most romantic thing you can do is just turn up. Turn up when it’s difficult for you. Travel halfway around the world or just up the road. Whatever it is, just be there.

ELLE: You have a pretty explicit sex scene in Trance with Rosario Dawson. Did you discuss that with your wife first?

JM: No. Anne-Marie and I are both actors. We never tell each other when we have to do anything kinky. We keep it to ourselves. Then afterward we’ll tell each other, "I had to do a bit of kissing today." It’s fine. It’s just embarrassing and awkward.

ELLE: Actors always say love scenes are awkward. But when Rosario walks in the room, naked—

JM: It’s so awkward! You’re sitting there going, "Okay. Don’t look. Don’t move your mouth." When they say action, you play it truthfully. Before that, you don’t want to make anybody feel like they’re being ogled, so I’m just sitting there on the bed with it all out. Hopefully people are being respectful toward me as well!

ELLE: For years, people asked you what it was like to kiss Angelina Jolie in Wanted.

JM: [Laughs] Ask her what it’s like to kiss me, motherfucker! That’s been my reply quite a lot. I remember the camera crew getting really excited—and excited on my behalf. "Guys, it’s just a screen kiss. Calm down." They were all in love with her. But it was just another day at the office.

ELLE: Nice office. Do you see yourself as a sex symbol?

JM: No, not at all. Generally, I play the guy where it’s a bit like: Yeah, he’s not unattractive, but it’s not his looks that make the lead girl want to be with him, so much. That’s the way I always feel in my head. I feel like I get away with more than what I was given.

(Q) : Danny Boyle makes strange choices for his subject, what intrigued you most about the choice of being in this film, is it Danny Boyle or the subject matter?

(James McAvoy) : It’s just a unique role, usually it’s the script and the role...I’ve worked with a lot of first time and second time directors actually because the director is not as important to me usually but Danny Boyle, you suddenly go -- “Holy Shit, Danny Boyle” ... I knew it was a massive opportunity to work with a true artist and he’s very unique within the world wide film industry who is a risk taker and a real dynamic old voice which seems to be getting even better.

(Q) : In the movie, your character we obviously don’t know much about actually because of the measures that you encounter but how would you be able to play it out because you know the story by the script but you actually don’t know much of your character, how do you actually play those actually like that?

(James McAvoy) : You do research on hypnosis, you research how powerful it is and find out how powerful it is and that it can actually do to you and then you just begin and in the beginning you don’t know who he is or what he’s capable of or how to define himself. He doesn’t know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy or a cuddly guy or a distant guy.

He doesn’t know what he is. He walks through the film trying to figure out who you are and what kind of performance your giving and then scene by scene you inform yourself so you try to do it a little bit like in the movie so you’re not thinking too far ahead and you’re a little bit blind going through it because the character is very, very blind.

(Q) : I see, how much did you learn about the auctioneering and at the same time did you learn any of the fine art auctioneering for preparing for this role?

(James McAvoy) : A little bit, we went to one to two biggest houses in London and I worked with a man called Mark Baltimore who was in a film actually at... And he gave me a good days worth of tips on auctioneering, just little tricks that people would do and how you can drive the money up and all of that. It was good, it was really good, a real privilege to get access to what was going on in there.

(Q) : Could you talk about actually collaboration working with Vincent Cassel, he creates the interesting actually presence there for the film. I heard initially Michael Fassbender was cast for the film but dropped out but I think they made the right choice of choosing Vincent Cassel so could you talk about the collaboration working with him?

(James McAvoy) : He’s good fun to work with. We had a lot of physical stuff to work on together and we’re both quite good at that I think. He surfs a lot, I play a lot of football so we’re both quite fit and healthy that way and physically worked very openly with each other and we had a laugh. He’s a good fun guy, he doesn’t take it too seriously, I don’t take it too seriously so we got on very well. He’s this good open person to tell this story with.

(Q) : Out of curiosity, if you have enough money to buy the fine art, like a painting in this film, what would you buy if you had enough money to purchase that?

(James McAvoy) : I think probably, I’ve always liked, it’s a quite hard one that. I want to get this right because there’s one, I know this, I just want to get the name, I’ve got a picture of it in front of me but I can’t remember the name off the top of my head.

(Q) : Would you be able to name the artist?

(James McAvoy) : Monet. I’m trying to just figure out. I can’t believe I can’t remember the name of the picture, it’s like my favorite thing. It’s gone from my head.

(Q) : It’s perfectly fine. In the movie, you mention that no piece of art is worth human life but do you find it ironic that when an art piece is stole you get more actually media coverage than people got killed. Art can be bigger than people, what are your thoughts on that?

(James McAvoy) : I agree wholeheartedly that a piece of art isn’t worth a life. I’m with him on that one.

(Q) : Could you talk about working with Danny Boyle because it just amazes me how you keep attention throughout the film, how do you define the difference between the director you’ve been working with, him and the other directors, what was the approach that was so fascinating about his approach?

(James McAvoy) : I think that Danny believes in us maybe because he’s made so many successful films, Danny is brave enough to start making a movie without knowing all the answers to all the questions in that movie. In fact, actively tries to look for new, more complicated and troublesome questions as the movie is going on and for him, he with him we find it as we go and discover what this animal is as it’s being born not before it’s being born but as it’s being born and it’s quite thrilling because no-one quite knows what we’re gonna end up with but you just trust that you’re with Danny and you’re gonna end up with something good...

(Q) : When you’re preparing this role did you see any heist movies? I remember your country man, Sean Connery was doing a movie called ‘Entrapment’ with Catherine Zeta-Jones a decade ago, did you see that movie for the heist? It wasn’t exactly the same but it’s like a same process of a stealing and those actually element there.

(James McAvoy) : No, I think the one heist movie I saw was ‘Safe House’ with Denzel Washington about four or five, six years ago or something like that. That was the last heist movie I saw. I think this movie isn’t really a heist movie.

(Q) : This is more actually between the hypnotist and the relationship. Speaking of relationship, this is the question about Rosario Dawson, she really finds the actually interesting actually character in this, how did you actually be able to, particularly in  the bed scene and stuff like that, how is it possible to pull off a difficult scene with her.

(James McAvoy) : It’s the same old, same old. It’s awkward and it’s the same story, it’s always like this and sorry it’s a boring answer but yeah. She’s a nice girl and I’m a nice guy, no feelings for each other and we just got along with it so it’s kind of straight forward. She’s a great girl with a great laugh. There was a lot of jokes on set and messing around. With these very intense characters, you have to smile when you’re away from the camera.