Anne HathawayJames McAvoy has defended the decision to cast Anne Hathaway as English writer Jane Austen in the new biopic Becoming Jane.

Anne and director Julian Jarrold have come under fire for casting an American actress in the lead role and while James admits the cricticism was “fairly expected”, he thinks people should look beyond nationality and accent.

He said recently: “I think you find the right actor - you don’t find the right accent - and she is undoubtedly brilliant.”

“When you find a British person playing JFK or some real big American icon, nobody bats an eyelid here. We don’t go, ‘This is terrible - it should be an American man playing this part’, so I don’t know why we get so annoyed.”