James McAvoy has disclosed that he was bullied by a fellow cast member on his very first day filming the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. The actor shared the story during an appearance on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen while participating in a segment called “Spill the IMDb-tea.”
When presented with a cast photo from the series, McAvoy studied the image before confirming the individual was present. “All right, so, I’m not going to tell you who it was,” he said. “[But] … one of the guys in that picture decided to bully me, on my first day as a professional actor out of acting school! So he got him and his buddies to just stand and point at me and laugh at me, for like three minutes.”
McAvoy explained the context: the scene involved a large ensemble in a bar setting. Many of the actors had been on the production for nine or ten months, while McAvoy had been brought in for a single episode with a substantial arc and significant dialogue. “They were all pissed,” he recalled. “And I come in for one episode, and I’ve got an arc and scenes. I’ve got tons of lines.”
The actor noted that co-stars Dexter Fletcher and Robin Laing offered support, telling him, “Come hang with us, man.”
McAvoy rated his overall experience on the production as a nine out of ten, “apart from that day,” which he said “felt like a two.”
Host Andy Cohen pressed for the name during a commercial break, but McAvoy declined to identify the person. He did clarify, however, that it was not David Schwimmer, who was not among the actors shown in the photograph.
The image featured Donnie Wahlberg as Carwood Lipton, Kirk Acevedo as Joe Toye, Scott Grimes as Donald Malarkey, Philip Barantini as Wayne A. “Skinny” Sisk, Neal McDonough as Lynn “Buck” Compton, Adam James as Cleveland O. Petty, Frank John Hughes as William “Wild Bill” Guarnere, and Ross McCall as Joseph Liebgott.
Band of Brothers, the 2001 drama series produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, was based on Stephen E. Ambrose’s non-fiction book of the same name.
Watch McAvoy’s interview in the video below.
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