James McAvoy Took SPLIT Role at the "Last Minute" After Joaquin Phoenix Bowed Out
James McAvoy recently appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote his recently released horror thriller Speak No Evil. While on the show, he revealed some interesting insight into how he landed his role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split.
McAvoy said he only had about two weeks to prepare for the film because he ended up being cast at the last minute after Joaquin Phoenix dropped out a couple of weeks before the film started shooting.
When asked if it was weird to take over the role from Phoenix, McAvoy answered: “No, definitely not. I’m confident enough to think that I will do it better anyway. I’m joking. I just like saying the wrong thing.”
The actor added: “Are you kidding? He’s an amazing actor. He’d give a very different performance than the one I did but an incredible one. 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 a couple of weeks [to prep]. Two weeks.
“The script was well put together so a lot of it was clear what I wanted to do straight away. A couple characters took a little longer to find. Patricia came quick. Hedwig took awhile.”
McAvoy role in Split is easily one of the best performances that he’s delivered in his career. He’s a talented actor that is great in everything that he does, but this was such a unique and wild role and he pulled it off brilliantly.
He played a criminal with dissociative identity disorder, which resulted in the actor portraying 23 different personalities.