James McAvoy Almost Played Tom Riddle in Harry Potter

Before he was young Charles Xavier from X-Men, the Scottish actor could have been young Voldemort.

Voldemort almost had a very familiar face. So early in his Hollywood career, James McAvoy was in the running to play Tom Riddle, the young wizard who would become He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (in 2002).

In his twenties, he was about to play the Hogwarts student who bewitched his diary and poor Ginny Weasley. When his agent advised him to turn down the role.

“I almost played in Harry Potter“, the star tells Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast.I remember it was at the very beginning of my career. I auditioned for it and I think they wanted to put me under contract. I had hardly any work and with ten other actors, they wanted to put us under contract so they could keep us around and choose later… It was a really strange thing.”

James McAvoy confides in the process having said no to a packet of dollars:

“And they offered me a lot of money. To me at the time it was a ton of money. It was like £40,000 or something. Except I hadn't done much filming and I would have been stuck for about seven months… So my agent said: Absolutely not. Don't do it. We'll find something else.”

Instead, he remembers making a piece for which he was “boo“. But without regret: “I did that instead and got paid about £275 a week. But hey, it was part of my career development. I was learning, actually.”

Christian Coulsonnow unknown to the battalion, took his place in The Chamber of Secrets.

Let us remember that Hero Fiennes Tiffin – the nephew of Ralph Fiennes And Frank Dillane also played a younger version of Tom Riddle in The Half-Blood Prince a few years later.