Promoting their new collaboration, Filth, the Scottish author reports McAvoy would be keen to play the disgraced TV host in a Welsh-penned film, though actor himself denies saying this
James McAvoy has said he would play Jimmy Savile if the life of the disgraced former TV presenter were ever to be brought to the big screen, according to author Irvine Welsh.
In a new interview with the Radio Times to promote Filth, the McAvoy-starring film about a corrupt, lustful and drug-addled policeman based on his own 1998 novel, Welsh said he had discussed Savile with his fellow Scot in the wake of revelations about the late DJ's appalling sex crimes over more than half a century.
"If you ever write a script about it, I'd love to play Jimmy Savile," McAvoy is reported to have told Welsh.
However, in a statement this morning, McAvoy has gone on record to deny having said this to the writer. "James did not make that statement. He has never expressed interest in playing the role of Jimmy Savile," said representatives for the star.
While such a project for Welsh might appear purely speculative, the Trainspotting writer maintains an interest in Savile's dubious notoriety dating back to a story in his 1996 collection Ecstasy, titled Lorraine Goes to Livingston. It features a children's television presenter named Freddy Royle, dubbed Britain's "favourite caring, laconic uncle", who maintains an interest in necrophilia and child abuse via his charitable sponsorship of a local hospital. The character was widely assumed to be a reference to Savile 15 years before his crimes came to light.
"I had nothing to do with the hospital services, or NHS trusts, or the BBC," Welsh told the Radio Times. "So how come I knew this rumour about Jimmy Savile, this eccentric British institution? There must have been so much stuff on the grapevine. But there was a whole culture then of not addressing these issues."
Filth is currently the top film at the Scottish box office, having opened north of the border a week prior to its debut in the rest of the UK. Its opening haul of £250,000 surpassed the debuts for McAvoy's comic book blockbusters Wanted and X-Men: First Class, as well as the 1996 bow for Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, based on Welsh's cult novel about Edinburgh heroin addicts.
Writer-director Jon S Baird's darkly comic thriller stars the Last King of Scotland actor opposite Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Imogen Poots and Eddie Marsan. Having benefited so far from positive reviews, it debuts in the rest of the UK on Friday and in Australia on 21 November.
• This article was expanded on 1 October 2013 to take in McAvoy's statement refuting Welsh's words