Actor James McAvoy has revealed that he was offered a significant remuneration to star in the Harry Potter series early on in his career. The actor reportedly turned it down to have more stable and persistent work.
According to a report on People, the actor said the same, while promoting his upcoming film Speak No Evil on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. He was asked if he was interested in playing the role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or being part of Star Wars project, for which he said,"Almost, yeah, I can probably say this one. 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."
Speaking about the amount, he further shared, "And they offered me something like it was crazy, I'd hardly done any work 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."
He didn't disclose details about the role, but revealed that he received a lucrative offer, particularly significant given his emerging status as an actor at the time. "For me, at that time, it was a ton of money, it was like 40,000 pounds or something like that, and I'd done very little work," he added.
But there was a condition and if he had agreed to the contract, he "wouldn't be able to do any work for about seven months" and that is why his agent Ruth Young advised him not to accept the offer.