In a classic case of never believing anything the tabloids tell you, it’s with a certain bit of disappointment that Rotten Tomatoes UK can exclusively reveal that James McAvoy isn’t in line for Scotty in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek reinvigoration.
The news came from The Sunday Mail, but McAvoy – at a press junket for new movie Becoming Jane – told RT-UK that the rumour was entirely untrue. "Rubbish, all rubbish," he said, adding that if he were to sign on, "I’d need to read the script. I wouldn’t play Scotty as written in the Original Series.
"But I am a Trekkie, though. I think it came from one person somewhere deciding that because I’m Scottish and in movies I’d be a good thing for Scotty. The thing I read was that some of the American fans thought this was a bad idea because the person who should play Scotty should not in fact be an authentic Scotsman but should in fact be American for reasons of authenticity to the Original Series. What that person doesn’t seem to realise is that James Doohan wasn’t American; he was Canadian."
McAvoy also thinks Scotty would need a rewrite to appeal to him. "If you look at what Scotty was," he told us, "he was only Scottish and nothing else. Sulu had a bit of character; so did Chekov. Uhura was a bit sexy. He got a bit of comedy in the films, but then he just became the comedy ethnic guy."
But McAvoy does have a soft spot for a certain Trek character. "My favourite character’s Bones actually," he laughed, "Bones always thought he was really sexy I think, which is funny ‘cos he’s not! I love him because he’s part of that little trio of Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, and he’s kind-of on the outside of those two. He’s never going to be as good pals with either of them as they are, and I like that kind of relationship."
RT-UK recently broke the news that Abrams was in the director’s chair for Star Trek XI and it pains us to think McAvoy won’t be involved, as fantastic as he’s been in the seven trillion films he’s starred in over the last twelve months.
Less surprising, but still somewhat disappointing, he also confirmed that Andrew Adamson and the crew of Narnia had no plans to write his character, Tumnus into Prince Caspian, the next chapter in the ongoing Chronicles currently in pre-production. "I was gutted about not being in this one," he told us, "They always said, ‘Even if you’re not in the books, we’ll write you in,’ and then at the end of the last one they went, ‘Listen, we’re not going to mess with the source material.’"
There are upsides to his non-appearance, though… "It would have been fun, but it wouldn’t have been fun to have four hours of make-up every day again."
