James McAvoy reveals he signed ‘Split’ after Joaquin Phoenix dropped out of role

James McAvoy has recently revealed he prepared for the Split in 2016 after Joaquin Phoenix dropped out of the role

Speaking on the latest episode of Happy Sad Confused podcast, James recalled his “last minute” preparation for the role in M. Night Shyamalan‘s thriller.

“I’m confident enough to think I’ll do it better. I’m joking,” he said.

James told the host, “He’s an amazing actor. I think he’d give a very different performance to the one I did, but I think he’d give an incredible performance.”

“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 two weeks,” stated the Together actor.

Reflecting on Split movie, James mentioned, “The script was well put together so a lot of it was pretty clear what I wanted to do straight away.”

“There were a couple of characters that took a little bit longer to find. Patricia came real quick, Dennis came real quick. Hedwig took a little while. It wasn’t until the read-through for the table read which I was really nervous for,” explained the X-Men actor.

James added, I’m sitting there like, ‘God, I’ve got to do all these 15 characters and be judged by everybody in the room, including Universal studio executives including Jason Blum, and I haven’t even found some of the characters.’ It just came on really quick.”

Meanwhile, the news came after Joaquin reportedly stormed off the set of Haynes’ gay romance in July.