James McAvoy recalls almost losing award-winning role to Joaquin Phoenix

Hollywood actor James McAvoy has revealed that he almost did not get his award-winning role in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split.”

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During a recent interview, the actor said he only had two weeks to prepare for his various roles in the 2016 thriller and the reason for it was Hollywood star Joaquin Phoenix.

According to McAvoy, he got the part at the last minute after the “Joker” actor reportedly dropped out a couple of weeks before production on the movie started.

Responding to a question if it felt weird taking over the role from Joaquin Phoenix, James McAvoy said: “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.”

“Are you kidding? He’s an amazing actor,” McAvoy said. “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.”

It is worth mentioning here that the Hollywood star appeared as a criminal named Kevin Wendell Crumb in ‘Split’ who has a dissociative identity disorder. The thriller saw James McAvoy portraying 23 different personalities.

McAvoy also explained how finding each character shown on screen was a challenge as he said “Patricia came real quick, Dennis came real quick, [and] Hedwig took a little while.”

The Hollywood star won several awards for his role as Kevin, including Best Actor in a Leading Role at the ALOS Awards and Best Villain by the Seattle Film Critics Society.

Fans on Rotten Tomatoes ranked ‘Split’ to be the duo’s second-best movie in each of their filmography.

Following the movie, McAvoy later reprised the character in 2019’s “Glass.”