James McAvoy recalls replacing Joaquin Phoenix after he dropped out of Split. McAvoy played Kevin Wendell Crumb, an individual with 23 distinct personalities, including the Beast, in the 2016 film directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Split’s ending and final plot twist revealed the film was a secret sequel to Shyamalan’s 2000 film Unbreakable. It would set up a third and final installment, Glass, that tied the two stories together and concluded the trilogy.

While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, McAvoy explained how he joined Split when Phoenix left the film two weeks before filming began. Check it out below:

McAvoy acknowledged the challenges he faced by joining Split so soon before production commenced, while admitting that coming on board at the last minute also had its advantages. He also described how he began navigating playing his character’s 23 different personalities. Read McAvoy’s comments below:

He’s an amazing actor. I think he’d give a very different performance to the one I did. Sometimes, coming in last minute is the best way. I think he ditched it like two weeks before they started shooting. It was really last minute. The script was well put together, so a lot of it was pretty clear what I actually wanted to do straight away. There was a couple of characters it took a little bit longer to find. Patricia came real quick, Dennis came real quick, Hedwig took a little while.
I hadn’t even found some of the characters and then it just came on really quick, and then Night actually said to me, “I want you to give Hedwig a speech impediment,” and I was like, “What, just at the last minute? You want me to just go for it?” and he was like, “Yeah, we need to try something.” So we did it in the readthrough and after one scene of doing it, were like, “Done!”

What James McAvoy Stepping In Last Minute Meant For Split
He Saved The Movie.

With so much of Split hinging on the performance of Kevin and his many personalities, losing Phoenix could have been detrimental to the film. Instead, McAvoy saved it, which became the best-received film that Shyamalan had directed and written since 2002’s Signs. Shyamalan’s work once again felt unpredictable, bold, and exciting, leading to a renewed interest in not just Glass but in his other projects released in subsequent years.

Movie Tomatometer Score Popcornmeter Score Release Year Split 78% 79% 2016 The Visit 68% 52% 2015 After Earth 12% 36% 2013 The Last Airbender 5% 30% 2010 The Happening 18% 24% 2008 Lady in the Water 25% 49% 2006 The Village 44% 57% 2004 Signs 75% 67% 2002 Unbreakable 70% 77% 2000

McAvoy’s performance received critical acclaim and is a defining moment in an impressive career that also includes X-Men, His Dark Materials, It Chapter Two, Speak No Evil, and award-winning acting in West End productions. With Glass receiving a 37% critical score and 66% audience score, Split proved to be the most well-regarded installment in the Unbreakable trilogy, largely because of McAvoy’s many impressive portrayals being at the forefront of the story. Even next to Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, McAvoy stole the show in Glass as well.

Split’s Last-Minute Change Worked Out Better Than Anyone Could Have Anticipated.

As McAvoy indicated in his comments, Phoenix is a tremendous actor who likely would have delivered an entirely different performance, but it was ultimately for the best that McAvoy was the one to lead Split. He made the film memorable through the incredible range he demonstrated in each of the personalities he embodied. The faith that Shyamalan put in McAvoy as early as the table read went a long way in ensuring that the actor and the film as a whole reached their full potential, making Split a high point in both Shyamalan and McAvoy’s respective careers.

Source: Happy Sad Confused