Scottish actor James McAvoy has refused to work with actress wife Anne-Marie Duff in case they become “a target”.

The Atonement star feared they would suffer in the spotlight the same way Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez or Liz Taylor and Richard Burton did.

But the couple - who met on the set of Channel 4’s comedy Shameless - are finally appearing on the big screen together.

However, they only accepted their roles because they don’t play opposite each other in The Last Station.

McAvoy said: “We’ve been offered a hell of a lot of parts playing opposite each other in films and TV and we just turn them down.

“If you do work together you put yourself up, you make yourself a target and you make your relationship a target and all of that. We’re very keen not to do that.

“But in The Last Station we don’t play opposite each other in the film. We don’t really act with each other hardly at all.”

He’s 30.