James McAvoy was offered 'ton of money' for Harry Potter role

James McAvoy was offered "a ton of money" to appear in 'Harry Potter'.

The 45-year-old actor was just starting his career when he auditioned for a brief role as Tom Riddle - aka the young Voldemort - in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' but was ultimately advised against taking up an offer as there was no guarantee he'd appear in the films.

Speaking on the 'Happy Sad Confused' podcast, he said: "The very first movie, I think it was — who is the — is it Tom Riddle in the first one, yeah? But he's like in it... for like a scene in a flashback or something like that? And they had — I simply remember it was right in the beginning of my career.

"I auditioned for it and I think they wanted to put me on a retainer. And they offered me something like - it was crazy, I'd hardly done any work - and me and I think maybe 10 other actors or something like that - they wanted to put us on retainer so that they could hold us and keep us to choose later."

The 'Speak No Evil' star admitted the offer was a "really strange thing" and was a huge sum for an up-and-coming young actor.

He added: "For me, at that time, it was a ton of money, it was like £40,000 or something like that, and I'd done very little work."

But if he had agreed to the retainer, James "wouldn't be able to do any work for about seven months" so his agent Ruth Young told him not to accept the offer and he went on to take a lower-paid theatre role instead, which was "the making" of him as an actor.

He added: "She was like we're going to go do something else, and I ended up doing the play [where] I got booed by a homophobic gentleman.

"I did that instead and I think got paid £275 a week. But it was part of the making of me, and I actually got in acting work. I was actually learning and doing all that."

A TV adaptation of 'Harry Potter' is in the works but James doesn't seem to have any interest in being part of it.

Asked if he'd audition for the project, he said: "I don't know if there's anything that I'm really missing in terms of what I've covered. I don't think I've done enough sci-fi, just because I love it.

"I don't think I've done enough comedy but I've been able to be funny in things that aren't funny. Always trying to bring the gags."