James McAvoy details ‘rough’ first meeting with Jennifer Aniston

James McAvoy revealed he had a ‘rough’ first meeting with Jennifer Aniston. 

While appearing on Wednesday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, the Scottish actor, 45, recalled an awkward encounter with the Golden Globe winner, 55, at a party in Hollywood at the start of his career. 

‘I did meet her and it wasn’t great,’ he said of meeting his celebrity crush when he first moved to Los Angeles. ‘Not because she’s not great.’

The Split star explained they crossed paths when he was ‘really young’ in the early 1990s.

‘I met Lucy Liu. And Lucy Liu was really, really nice to me and she was like, “Come meet my friends,”‘ McAvoy remembered.

He went on to say Liu, 55, led him to a small group of her pals, which included Aniston, 55. 

‘I got parked right beside Jennifer Aniston,’ McAvoy said. ‘And just as [Liu] was like, “Hey, guys, meet my new friend James,” instead of saying that, she got pulled aside by a guy she went to high school with. She went away and I was just left standing with all these people going, “Hey, what’s up, I’m new in town.”‘ 

The actor proceeded to turn to Aniston and say: ‘So you’re Jennifer Aniston and you’re in Friends.’ 

‘It was rough. But she was lovely,’ he mused. 

He has since gone on to tie the knot with actress and producer Lisa Liberati. 

The couple began dating in 2018 after they met on the set of Split in America.

James had a leading role in the film while Lisa was a production assistant for the director M. Night Shyamalan.

McAvoy revealed he and Liberati secretly walked down the aisle in 2022. 

Prior to their relationship, he was married to Anne-Marie Duff between 2006 to 2016. 

Aniston became one of the most successful actresses in the world after launching into stardom on her hit series, Friends, which ran for 10 seasons. 

Meanwhile, McAvoy kicked off his his screen career at age 16 in the 1995 thriller, The Near Room, before landing his breakout role in the miniseries, Children of Dune. 

He is, now, best known for his roles in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Split, The Last King of Scotland and It Chapter Two. 

Previously, Aniston’s Friends costars, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, both also admitted to having crushes on her. 

Ahead of his tragic death in 2023, Perry revealed he was ‘immediately taken’ after their first meeting in his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. 

The star said he called up Aniston before they started filming Friends in a bid to impress her with two acting roles he had booked – but she was allegedly left unimpressed. 

‘It was clear that this made her think I liked her too much, or in the wrong kind of way,’ he wrote. 

He then asked her out, with Aniston suggesting they stay friends instead, with Perry responding: ‘[We] can’t be friends!’   

The two actors were then brought together for their first Friends table read in 1994, with Perry saying: ‘We were able to sail right past the past and focus on the fact that we had both gotten the best job Hollywood had to offer.’

Perry said he continued to be attracted to Aniston as they filmed the show, and was ‘frequently overanalyzing’ every conversation they had – but that he slowly got over her due to the star’s ‘deafening lack of interest.’

The Odd Couple star said he had ‘long since gotten over her’ when Aniston began a relationship with future husband Brad Pitt in 1998 and was able to maintain conversations with her ‘without it being awkward.’

While Perry’s on-screen relationship with Aniston also remained platonic, they did share kisses in the show, including a liplock in the season 10 episode, The One Where The Stripper Cries – showing a flashback to Chandler and Ross’ college days.

His confession came after Schwimmer admitted that they had crushes on each other when filming began on Friends in 1994 during the 2021 HBO Max reunion special. 

‘I mean, the first season, I had a major crush on Jen. At some point, we were crushing hard on each other,’ David revealed.

David explained: ‘But it was like two ships passing, because one of us was always in a relationship and we never crossed that boundary.

Jennifer said that she had a conversation with Ross prior to their character’s first kiss.

‘Honestly, I remember saying one time to David, ‘It’s going to be such a bummer if the first time you and I actually kiss is going to be on national television,’ Jennifer said. ‘

Jennifer noted: ‘Sure enough, first time we kissed was in that coffee shop. So we just channeled all of our adoration and love for each other into Ross and Rachel.’

David and Jennifer also spent time together during breaks from rehearsal, with David recalling that they would ‘cuddle on the couch.’

‘We would spoon and fall asleep on the couch,’ Jennifer said.

During the reunion special, footage of their characters snuggling aired, with David adding: ‘How did not everyone know we were crushing on each other?’

However, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry both said they ‘knew’ about David and Jennifer’s attraction to each other.

In the end, David said it ‘was a situation we couldn’t do anything about,’ with Courteney adding that it was for the best: ‘How great though, ultimately. Because if you had [acted on it] and it didn’t work out, it would have not been as great [on the show].’

The Friends cast had an ‘unspoken rule’ not to date one another.