James McAvoy revealed that he took over what would become one of his most recognizable roles after Joaquin Phoenix dropped out at the “last minute.”
The 45-year-old actor appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast on Friday (September 13).
During the conversation, he revealed that he was recruited just a few weeks before filming began on his 2016 horror movie Split after Joaquin dropped out.
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James was asked if it was nerve wracking to take over so last minute, and he jokingly said “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,” he said, adding, “Are you kidding? He’s an amazing actor.”
He continued, saying, “I think he’d give a very different performance to the one I did, but I think he’d give an incredible performance.”
It wasn’t all bad, though.
“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,” he recalled. “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.”
James recently revealed a very “rough” interaction with one of his celeb crushes.
