James McAvoy nearly missed out on a career-defining role in M. Night Shyamalan’s acclaimed film Split, but an A-list actor’s last-minute departure opened the door for him. This twist of fate led McAvoy to portray Kevin, a character with 23 distinct personalities.
Certain iconic movie roles are so well-associated with their actors that it’s hard to imagine anyone else taking them on, like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible series.
However, sometimes serendipity plays a significant role in casting decisions, and this is precisely how McAvoy landed his part in one of M. Night Shyamalan’s most notable films.
During his appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, McAvoy shared that his involvement in Split almost didn’t happen if Joaquin Phoenix hadn’t exited the project. “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,” he explained.
McAvoy praised Phoenix, noting, “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.”
Split, which serves as a follow-up to Shyamalan’s 2000 film Unbreakable, tells the gripping story of three teenage girls who are kidnapped by Kevin, a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder.
McAvoy discussed the challenges of embodying each character, admitting that while “Patricia came real quick, Dennis came real quick, [and] Hedwig took a little while.”
Fortunately, Shyamalan was open to adjusting each of the personalities since McAvoy was brought in at the last moment. The actor recalled one particular adjustment: “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?’”
He continued, “And he was like, ‘Yeah, we need to try something.’ So, we did it in the read-through and after one scene of doing it, we’re like, ‘Done!’”
This casting change ultimately benefited both McAvoy and Shyamalan, with Split now being recognized by Rotten Tomatoes as their second-best collaboration. McAvoy’s stellar performance earned him multiple awards, including Best Actor in a Leading Role at the ALOS Awards and Best Villain from the Seattle Film Critics Society.
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