James McAvoy has shared a secret about his The Great Celebrity Bake Off win - and if we don't whether we should be shocked or impressed!
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The actor, who stars in the new BBC one-off drama Together, has revealed that he had something of an advantage over his competitors - singer Anne-Marie, Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes and comedian David Baddiel - during his time in the Bake Off tent earlier this year.
"I was an apprentice confectioner for three years," the X-Men star admitted in a new interview with The Times, adding that he even fessed up to producers but the Channel 4 show "cut it out" of the final edit.
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Viewers will remember that James managed to impress judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith with his cheese and chive scones in the technical challenge, but it was his showstopper that eventually bagged him the coveted star baker apron.
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Speaking about his winning cake, which was inspired by his television series His Dark Materials and shaped like a snow leopard, he joked that it "pulled on [Paul's] heartstrings a wee bit" because the judge is an ambassador for a big cat sanctuary.
© Photo: Channel 4James wowed the judges with Piña colada snow leopard cake
The 42-year-old Scottish actor previously told W Magazine of his time working in a bakery as a teenager: "I was like the apprentice confectioner. The other guy did all the hard stuff, and I would come in and put the cream and the little kiwi fruit on the top. It was great fun - cakes and tarts and gâteaux and all that."
James continued to earn his keep by working on the confectionery counter even after he landed a place at the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he studied acting alongside Lucifer's Tom Ellis and Outlander stars Laura Donnelly and Sam Heughan. He eventually gave up the side hustle after moving to London to try and score TV and theatre parts.
© Photo: Channel 4James has revealed that he previously worked as an apprentice confectioner for three years
In his new lockdown family drama, which airs on BBC One on Thursday night, he plays a husband and a father who's been furloughed and taken up growing vegetables in his small London garden as a result of the pandemic.
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Catastrophe and Motherland actress and writer Sharon Horgan plays his wife with whom he shares a ten-year-old son, and the film chronicles the family's life from the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 until the present day.
Speaking about the film, James told the BBC: "It's a hilarious, heartfelt, entertaining and unconsciously funny exploration of a relationship and a couple facing real tragedy across a year we have all lived through."
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