James McAvoy – X-Men: Days Of Future Past
After playing a perfectly respectable version of Professor X, aka Charles Xavier, in X-Men: First Class, albeit a rather collected one next to Michael Fassbender’s simmering Magneto, McAvoy came back for the Bryan Singer-directed sequel (prequel?) to steal the entire show.
His character growth in this film is the true heart of the story, as we watch him become an emotionally crippled, ex-hero who would rather sleep away his pain in a drug fuelled haze than confront the lives he couldn’t save and the students he couldn’t protect.
Delivering a truly moving performance as a man in the throes of despair, unable to find the hope that would go on to define his character, McAvoy’s is the performance worth watching in the film and the character who we truly aim to go on a journey with.