James McAvoy recently opened up about his unexpected casting in M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller Split.
The actor revealed that he joined the project just two weeks before filming began after Joaquin Phoenix unexpectedly dropped out of the lead role.
McAvoy, known for his role as Professor X in the X-Men franchise, took on the challenging task of playing Kevin Wendell Crumb, a character with 23 distinct personalities.
In a recent chat on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Scottish actor admitted that the last-minute casting posed a major challenge for him particularly due to the complexity of the role.
McAvoy said, “I’m confident enough to think I’ll do it better. I’m joking!”
“He’s an amazing actor. I think he’d give a very different performance to the one I did, but I think he’d give an incredible performance.”
He continued, “Sometimes coming in last minute is the best way. I think he ditched it two weeks before they started shooting. It was really last minute. I had two weeks.”
Despite the time crunch, McAvoy credited the well-crafted script for helping him quickly grasp most of the personalities.
He noted that characters like Patricia and Dennis came naturally, while Hedwig required more time to develop.
McAvoy explained, “The script was well put together so a lot of it was pretty clear what I wanted to do straight away. There were a couple of characters that took a little bit longer to find.
“Patricia came real quick, Dennis came real quick. Hedwig took a little while. It wasn’t until the read-through for the table read which I was really nervous for.”
McAvoy’s performance in Split gained critical acclaim and contributed to the film’s box office success, grossing over $278 million against a $9 million budget.
McAvoy later reprised the role in the 2019 sequel Glass, which concluded the trilogy that began with Unbreakable in 2000.
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