James McAvoy had a "rough" first meeting with Jennifer Aniston

During an appearance on 'Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen', James said: "I did meet her and it wasn't great ... [Not] because she's not great."

James went on to explain: "I was at a party when I was really young. I was like 22 in LA. And I met Lucy Liu and Lucy Liu was really, really nice to me.

"She was like, 'Come meet my friends.' There was a big circle of her friends and one of them happened to be Jennifer Aniston, and I got parked right beside Jennifer Aniston.

"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 and she went away. I was just left standing with all these people going, 'Hey, what's up, I'm new in town'."

James then turned to Jennifer and said: "So you're Jennifer Aniston and you're in 'Friends'."

He added: "It was rough. But she was lovely."

The revelation comes after James opened up about his early life and revealed he isn't afraid of failing because of his beloved grandmother.

The actor spent a lot of time with his granny as a child and lived with her for a time after his parents' divorce - and he believes she gave him the tools to survive the tough side of working in the entertainment industry.

He told the Guardian newspaper: "I'm really lucky in a lot of ways, mainly that my granny's all over me. I've definitely got a large dose of what she has ...

"She doesn't really give a f*** about what anybody thinks of her. So it liberates her. I'm definitely capable of being embarrassed, but I don't feel embarrassed about being masculine enough, I don't feel embarrassed about getting it wrong, or not being clued-up, not knowing something that other people know."