This has probably been the weirdest week of my life.
Before I begin, I should clarify that at no point during the week did I actually meet James McAvoy. If you want to read a post about meeting famous people, I did see the Duchess of Cambridge in person last month, and I still haven't stopped bragging about it. But I didn't even leave my house this week, so this is going to be a story told entirely through screenshots and links to YouTube videos.
Just in case you didn't already know, this is James McAvoy:
He's played Mr Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Wesley Gibson in Wanted and the younger version of Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies. He's also kind of pivotal to this blog post, so it's very important for you to know what his face looks like.
When the week started, I'd just returned from a long vacation, and even though I was still on holiday, I was determined to be productive. I dusted off my Bullet Journal (which I still occasionally use! Didn't quit after two months like I initially thought) and made a list of all the things I could do: I could learn how to use Photoshop; I could write a research paper; I could apply for an online internship; I could read all of Shakespeare's works and direct a modern day adaptation of Hamlet for my college's drama festival!
Five minutes later, I was scrolling through the list of recommended videos on YouTube.
Somehow, I ended up on an episode of the Graham Norton Show with Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe and The Corrs. I clicked on it because of Benedict Cumberbatch, and I stayed till the end because I absolutely love The Corrs. I didn't really care much about James McAvoy at this point, so I just listened to him talk about Victor Frankenstein and laughed at his story about not being as attractive as Channing Tatum. And then The Corrs came on, and up until that point in my life, I was relatively normal.
Now, while I was watching, my friends were having a conversation on group chat about their favourite Jane Austen heroes.
I thought it was a hilarious coincidence that James McAvoy just happened to come up in the conversation at the very same time that I was watching him on Graham Norton, so I decided to go and watch a video of him giving an interview to promote Becoming Jane. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but at that time I was very glad that I did. I thought he was quite charming, with the noises that he made with his mouth and the way that he spoke to the cameraman and everything.
So I Googled him, and I saw the list of movies that he'd done, and I saw that he was in Atonement with Keira Knightley, who I have quite a girl-crush on, and so I went an watched an interview that the two of them did together while promoting Atonement.
It kind of snowballed from there. I don't remember the details, but I have realised that YouTube's "Up next" feature is a very dangerous thing. By just clicking that play button over and over again, I managed to watch practically every single interview that James McAvoy has done in relation to Atonement.
By the end of it, I was going a bit mad.
Suddenly, inexplicably, James McAvoy had become my whole life. I did see his face when I closed my eyes, and the voice in my head had an unmistakably Scottish accent. It was the strangest thing, and instead of discouraging me, which was the only sensible thing to do, the Universe egged me on, and every coincidence that could possibly take place did take place, and with me.
First, this happened:
What happened next was.
If you can't see the attached image clearly, this is what it was:
Really, though.
So, on Friday, after making sure that I had the TV all to myself that night, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do. I'd already seen every YouTube video that had James McAvoy in it, and given what I had planned for the evening, I couldn't just go about my life as normal. Now, I knew that James had a wife, Anne-Marie Duff, and I knew that she was an actress, so I figured that she'd have some interviews too. So I searched for them, and she did! I watched them all.
I'm so ashamed of myself.
I hated Anne-Marie at first. I was inordinately jealous of her, in the same way that I'm jealous of Sophie Hunter, Susie Hariet and anyone who has ever dated Prince Harry. But as I listened to her talk, I started to grow quite fond of her. She seemed quite intelligent and socially conscious, and I could see why James would like someone like that. Besides, I appreciated the way that he was so loyal and faithful to his wife and how always wore his wedding ring everywhere he went. And so it was that by the time I settled down to watch Atonement, I didn't hate Anne-Marie Duff anymore.
Over the next three hours, I watched Atonement and cried, and then I watched the Graham Norton Show and chuckled at Jack Whitehall's ridiculous costumes, and as I was going to bed, two thoughts floated through my head. The first was about James McAvoy's marriage. Despite the age difference, despite the fact that he acts opposite so many attractive women all the time, they'd managed to make it work, and for so long, and I thought that was just lovely.
The second was that the realisation that I was possibly being quite ridiculous about the whole thing with James McAvoy. After all, he's an A-List actor who has been in a lot of films, and it's perfectly reasonable for one of his movies to come on TV. And actors go on talk shows all the time. It was a coincidence that these were shown on the same day, sure, but coincidences happen all the time. Besides, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, it wasn't as though any of this of a major event in the life of James McAvoy. It was just a part of his routine - nothing to write home about.
The next morning, I woke up, turned on my computer, and, as has been my custom of late, typed "James McAvoy" into the search bar on Twitter. And this is what came up:
I think my heart stopped for a moment. I just gaped at the screen like an idiot.
Before I begin, I should clarify that at no point during the week did I actually meet James McAvoy. If you want to read a post about meeting famous people, I did see the Duchess of Cambridge in person last month, and I still haven't stopped bragging about it. But I didn't even leave my house this week, so this is going to be a story told entirely through screenshots and links to YouTube videos.
Just in case you didn't already know, this is James McAvoy:
He's played Mr Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Wesley Gibson in Wanted and the younger version of Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies. He's also kind of pivotal to this blog post, so it's very important for you to know what his face looks like.
When the week started, I'd just returned from a long vacation, and even though I was still on holiday, I was determined to be productive. I dusted off my Bullet Journal (which I still occasionally use! Didn't quit after two months like I initially thought) and made a list of all the things I could do: I could learn how to use Photoshop; I could write a research paper; I could apply for an online internship; I could read all of Shakespeare's works and direct a modern day adaptation of Hamlet for my college's drama festival!
Five minutes later, I was scrolling through the list of recommended videos on YouTube.
Now, while I was watching, my friends were having a conversation on group chat about their favourite Jane Austen heroes.
I thought it was a hilarious coincidence that James McAvoy just happened to come up in the conversation at the very same time that I was watching him on Graham Norton, so I decided to go and watch a video of him giving an interview to promote Becoming Jane. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but at that time I was very glad that I did. I thought he was quite charming, with the noises that he made with his mouth and the way that he spoke to the cameraman and everything.
So I Googled him, and I saw the list of movies that he'd done, and I saw that he was in Atonement with Keira Knightley, who I have quite a girl-crush on, and so I went an watched an interview that the two of them did together while promoting Atonement.
It kind of snowballed from there. I don't remember the details, but I have realised that YouTube's "Up next" feature is a very dangerous thing. By just clicking that play button over and over again, I managed to watch practically every single interview that James McAvoy has done in relation to Atonement.
And it got worse. Over the next 36 hours, I traversed James McAvoy's entire career through interviews with the man. I watched interviews about The Last King of Scotland. I watched interviews about Wanted. I watched interviews about X-Men, and there were many, many of those. I watched interviews about Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe, and I loved those so much, I watched them again.Spent the whole day watching old interviews with James McAvoy #productivity— Nikita (@NikitaWhoWrites) May 11, 2016
By the end of it, I was going a bit mad.
Suddenly, inexplicably, James McAvoy had become my whole life. I did see his face when I closed my eyes, and the voice in my head had an unmistakably Scottish accent. It was the strangest thing, and instead of discouraging me, which was the only sensible thing to do, the Universe egged me on, and every coincidence that could possibly take place did take place, and with me.
First, this happened:
Which was understandable. After all, X-Men: Apocalypse is coming out in a few days, it makes sense that its actors are going onto talk shows to promote the movie. It still doesn't explain why I began this obsession with James McAvoy, for a completely unrelated reason, in the very fortnight before his big movie releases. It also doesn't explain why they couldn't have sent Michael Fassbender with Jennifer Lawrence, but this wasn't that weird.Going to spend the weekend watching a new interview with James McAvoy #productivity https://t.co/NHyWWBdUhv— Nikita (@NikitaWhoWrites) May 12, 2016
What happened next was.
If you can't see the attached image clearly, this is what it was:
Really, though.
So, on Friday, after making sure that I had the TV all to myself that night, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do. I'd already seen every YouTube video that had James McAvoy in it, and given what I had planned for the evening, I couldn't just go about my life as normal. Now, I knew that James had a wife, Anne-Marie Duff, and I knew that she was an actress, so I figured that she'd have some interviews too. So I searched for them, and she did! I watched them all.
I'm so ashamed of myself.
I hated Anne-Marie at first. I was inordinately jealous of her, in the same way that I'm jealous of Sophie Hunter, Susie Hariet and anyone who has ever dated Prince Harry. But as I listened to her talk, I started to grow quite fond of her. She seemed quite intelligent and socially conscious, and I could see why James would like someone like that. Besides, I appreciated the way that he was so loyal and faithful to his wife and how always wore his wedding ring everywhere he went. And so it was that by the time I settled down to watch Atonement, I didn't hate Anne-Marie Duff anymore.
Over the next three hours, I watched Atonement and cried, and then I watched the Graham Norton Show and chuckled at Jack Whitehall's ridiculous costumes, and as I was going to bed, two thoughts floated through my head. The first was about James McAvoy's marriage. Despite the age difference, despite the fact that he acts opposite so many attractive women all the time, they'd managed to make it work, and for so long, and I thought that was just lovely.
The second was that the realisation that I was possibly being quite ridiculous about the whole thing with James McAvoy. After all, he's an A-List actor who has been in a lot of films, and it's perfectly reasonable for one of his movies to come on TV. And actors go on talk shows all the time. It was a coincidence that these were shown on the same day, sure, but coincidences happen all the time. Besides, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, it wasn't as though any of this of a major event in the life of James McAvoy. It was just a part of his routine - nothing to write home about.
The next morning, I woke up, turned on my computer, and, as has been my custom of late, typed "James McAvoy" into the search bar on Twitter. And this is what came up:
I think my heart stopped for a moment. I just gaped at the screen like an idiot.
And then I stumbled over myself to get to my phone to text everyone and let them know that James McAvoy was getting a divorce, and that I was possibly a sorceress.
I proceeded to spend the rest of Saturday scrolling through Twitter, trying to work out if it was just another one of James McAvoy's pranks. But it wasn't, and they were really splitting up, and I cried because it made me really sad to think that I might have jinxed it. Or perhaps it was just residual sadness from the end of Atonement. Either way, James McAvoy reduced me to tears.
The upshot of it all is that I've had far too much of James McAvoy, and am no longer obsessed with him. And just in time too, because I was fully intending to go and watch X-Men: Apocalypse in 3D. That's money that I can now spend on books.
I hope you've enjoyed this story of one person's obsession and some sort of black magic, maybe. Here, have a GIF.
N
