The secret is out. James McAvoy has quietly been a father of two for four years, and he’s finally ready to talk about it. The 46-year-old actor confirmed in a recent interview that he and his wife, Lisa Liberati, welcomed a son together in 2022, news that has remained private until now.
The James McAvoy second child revelation came almost casually during a conversation about his new film, with the actor offering his first public reflections on what it means to embrace fatherhood in his 40s.
McAvoy, who has long guarded his personal life from public scrutiny, let the news slip while discussing his family arrangement. He and Liberati split their time between London and Philadelphia, where Liberati’s family lives. Their son is now four years old, meaning he was born around the time the couple quietly married in early 2022.
The actor also shares 15-year-old son Brendon with ex-wife Anne-Marie Duff, his Shameless co-star, whom he divorced in 2016.
Reflecting on becoming a dad again in his 40s, McAvoy offered a characteristically honest take.
“Having a kid at 42 is definitely easier in some ways,” he said. “I worry less. I’m a bit more philosophical. But it’s also harder, because you’re just older and tireder.”
The quote captures a duality many late-in-life parents will recognize: the calm of experience weighed against the physical demands of raising a young child.
McAvoy and Liberati first crossed paths in 2016 on the set of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. At the time, McAvoy starred as the lead, while Liberati worked as Shyamalan’s personal assistant. They began dating sometime after, eventually marrying in a private ceremony in 2022, the same year their son was born.
The actor has spoken before about his refusal to treat his private life as public currency. In a 2017 interview, he said, “One of the things that’s stayed the same is that I still don’t talk about my personal life, really.” His silence on his second child for four years is a testament to that commitment.
McAvoy is currently promoting California Schemin’, his directorial debut. The musical biopic tells the true story of two Scottish rappers who pretended to be American to break into the music industry. The film premiered on the festival circuit last year and hits UK theaters in April.
The actor admitted that the stress of first-time directing has been keeping him up at night, another challenge he’s facing in his 40s.
“I’m getting all that first-timer stress in my 40s,” he said. “When we were shooting the film, I’d wake up at 2:30 a.m. with the film buzzing in my head.”
For a man who has spent three decades acting, directing brought a new kind of pressure. But balancing that with fatherhood to a four-year-old? That’s a different kind of exhaustion altogether.
