James McAvoy has confirmed to the National Post that he's giving himself a break after 'The Last Station' in which he plays a Tolstoy assistant opposite Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and Anne-Marie Duff.

"I am going to take it easy and give myself some space," McAvoy says. "I've been around sets a lot over the last year or two, so I need lots of space to myself."

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James McAvoy might be the Scottish version of Mark Ruffalo. Like Ruffalo, he's not Hollywood handsome, but the ladies seem to love him. Both had modest starts to their careers, too. Ruffalo was a bartender while McAvoy toiled as a baker's assistant.

What McAvoy can add to his list is this: He's the lead in an action flick. The 29-year-old stars with Angelina Jolie in the high-concept shoot 'em up Wanted, which opens on Friday to lots of pre-release anticipation.

The Timur Bekmambetov directed movie is based on a comic book miniseries, and McAvoy portrays the son of a government assassin forced into his father's profession through a series of incredibly volatile events. Besides Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Common, Terence Stamp and German actor Thomas Kretschmann provide backup.

The thrills-and-spills film is quite a contrast for McAvoy, who's made a reputation for emoting in movies that embrace subtlety rather than sensationalism.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, McAvoy has always been a subtle sort of guy. He was a Roy-al Scottish Academy of Music and Drama graduate but found himself putting icing on cakes in a bake shop in between acting gigs mostly on Brit TV.

Eventually, his efforts led to being cast in the Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg HBO series Band of Brothers and then later the award-winning BBC political drama State of Play.

British movies followed, including Bright Young Things and Inside I'm Dancing, but he didn't enjoy a breakout until his part as Mr. Tumnus the Faun in 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Supporting parts

opposite Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland and Oscar nominee Keira Knightley in Atonement solidified his reputation.

Wanted is definitely a huge departure for the actor, but McAvoy's thrilled with the challenge. "Half the fun of this film is watching him change," he says of his office slacker who turns lethal killer. "And he's quite unhealthy psychologically at the end of this film," McAvoy adds.

Another first for the slim 5-foot-7 actor was the physical training this movie required, which included weights and kick-boxing throughout the shoot. "Every morning," emphasizes McAvoy, grimacing. "Then on top of that, we had the gun training, which I was completely new to."

Jolie, a veteran of action flicks, helped him the most when it came time to get into the Wanted spirit.

"She told me to lighten up, so I did," he says. "But I applied myself in the same way and in the same level of seriousness and commitment as I had with other films." And, yes, that includes McAvoy's kissing scene with Jolie, which he describes as all business. "I think I was more intimate with my makeup artist that day than I was with Angelina," he says.

McAvoy is a big enough name now that he's part of a rumour mill, which amuses the actor. He chuckles at the suggestion that he's up for the role of Bilbo Baggins in the Guillermo del Toro film version of The Hobbit.

Not true, he says. And no, he wasn't in competition with funnyman Jack Black or Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe for the coveted part. "It's all these types of discussions that have caught the imagination of some people," McAvoy says.

However, he's looking on the bright side. "For people to think that someone like Guillermo del Toro would at all be interested in me is very flattering," he says. "It would be more flattering if it was true."

He can confirm that he's doing The Last Station, which is shooting in Germany. "It's based on the collected memoirs of various members of Tolstoy's inner circle in the last year of his life," McAvoy says.