James McAvoy
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James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are in negotiations to portray the title roles of Gnomeo and Juliet, a CGI-animated Shakespeare adaptation from Miramax and Elton John's Rocket Pictures.

The movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter, will feature several classic songs by the iconic singer.

In the loose and edgy adaptation of Shakespeare's rather well-known play, McAvoy (Atonement) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) will play lovers from rival gardens.

John, who is producing alongside his offscreen partner David Furnish, Baker Bloodworth and Steve Hamilton Shaw, is rumored to be pursuing big-name talent to voice supporting roles.

James McAvoy graces the cover of the August issue of Details. Here are highlights from his interview with the magazine:

On the types of movies he likes to star in: “Hugh Grant is fucking great and he’s funny. I like romantic comedies. I’ve been in one and I f—ing loved it. I got to show off and I got to be a d—. It’s always fun to play d—. That’s why I loved Last King (of Scotland) —I got to be such a wanker.”

On being cast in Wanted alongside Angelina Jolie: “I think inside all actors, there’s a kid who secretly yearns to jump off buildings and say ‘Yippeekayay, motherf—er!’ I also thought that the fact that they were willing to cast someone like me showed a willingness to step outside the usual action-movie realm.”

With talk of a Wanted sequel already on the horizon, James McAvoy won't be going anywhere for awhile.

The popular British actor recently spoke to MoviesOnline about the film:

MoviesOnline: Was it a challenge working out for the role?
James McAvoy: It was. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I did it. There were times where I just wanted to stop and do nothing else. But I had a great trainer called Glen Chapman who was a proper drill sergeant for me. Nice guy but he made me do things that I didn't want to do and he made me sick quite a lot.

James McAvoy is a Wanted man these days.

And it's good though because apart from the physical aesthetic of they wanted their action hero to be a bit more buff and all that, I wouldn't have got through four and a half months had I not be fitter and more healthy and in better shape than I usually am. I think I was capable of doing all the things in the film but not consistently with the high level intensity being sustained over four and a half months.

Because every day was like a 12, 13, maybe 14 hour day and a lot of it was taken up with stunts. That was quite grueling so I needed to be in better shape than I usually am.

MoviesOnline: What was the most grueling stunt?
James McAvoy: There was a lot of wire stuff that ended up getting cut from the film. The whole ending of the film was different. There was a sequence where Morgan and I fall through like four levels of a building that is blowing up as we fall through the levels, fighting each other as we do it. That was four days on wires in a harness having your groin ruptured and that's never fun.

That was probably the most grueling thing, and then to find out that it has been cut out of the film. "Yeah, yeah, it didn't work, wasn't very good. It was really boring." You're like, "What?!" "Yeah, we're reshooting it. We're doing this scene that takes like 20 minutes to film. That will end the film." "What? Is there going to be a harness?" "No." "All right."

On second thought, maybe James McAvoy won't be playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.

"I'm a huge fan of the Tolkien saga, everything to do with Middle-earth," the actor told MTV News this weekend. "But no there's no truth in the fact that they've approached me yet."

Of course, just because they haven't approached McAvoy doesn't mean he's out of the running yet. Would you wanna see him star as Bilbo in The Hobbit?

Up next, fans can catch the British star alongside Angelina Jolie as Wesley Gibson in Wanted.

James McAvoy is one of the most interesting, young actors in Hollywood. He's also turning 29 today. Happy birthday, Jimmy!

A Scottish star, McAvoy has been nominated for a Golden Globe and was  ranked number-18 on Entertainment Weekly's 30 Under 30 actors list last year. The man has some serious skills.

Here are a few of his more memorable movie roles:

• Penelope
• Atonement
• The Last King of Scotland
  

James McAvoy and Keira Knightley grace the current covers of both Entertainment Weekly and W Magazine.

Here are snippets of the interview the Atonement stars gave the former publication:

Entertainment Weekly: Since so much of Atonement rides on the chemistry between the two of you, how nervous were you to shoot your big love scene?
Keira Knightley: You have to believe that they will wait for each other for five years based on that one moment. So it had to be erotic, and it had to be passionate enough. We talked about it a lot. Most directors just go, ''Oh, you know what to do. Just get on with it.'' Well, actually, I don't know what to do. This is a relative stranger, and I'm in front of a group of strangers and I don't know what to do.

Joe was incredibly precise. He had storyboarded the whole thing: My foot coming out of my shoe, biting my lip at the end, the way my head turns â€" that was all completely him. And during it, because it was so close and it was on a Steadicam, we didn't know what part of the body the shot was on. So Joe literally shouted [directions] out as we were doing it.

EW: Both of you say your favorite scene together is when you reunite over tea during the war.
James McAvoy: That was the scene that made me think, I can do this part. At one point it was dramatically altered.
Knightley: Oh, that was awful! Remember? We nearly died!

Read the full interview with the stars now.

James McAvoy recently spoke with Comingsoon.net about his work in Atonement:

CS: I wanted to start by asking you about working with Saoirse Ronan. I've seen her in another movie and she's a bit of a scene-stealer, isn't she?
McAvoy: Yeah, she's great, she's really really good. She's a nice girl as well, and she's a proper actress. She's not just like a little girl who's very natural in front of a camera, because that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to do what the script says.

CS: Romola Garai mentioned that when she worked with Saoirse, she would tell her why she did things in a certain way, and I understand her father's an actor as well.
McAvoy: Yeah, he's good too, but yeah, she's a proper actress.

CS: Is it hard to work with someone that young in terms of expectations of having to carry them before finding out they're that good already?
McAvoy: No, not at all. You don't really have expectations like that I don't think, and also because you do three weeks of rehearsals and you just go, "Yeah, she's really good. She can do her thing." Nah, she's wonderful. It's a pleasure working with her and why wouldn't you enjoy working with a good actress, whatever age she is? 'Cause it only makes you better I think.

Click here to read the full interview.