James McAvoy: “In Speak No Evil, I embody toxic masculinity”

Meet the beloved Scottish actor, who shows his dark side (and his muscles) in the Blumhouse production Speak No Evil.

First: Speak No Evil relies heavily on your performance as a friendly guy who gradually reveals a menacing face…

James McAvoy: It's a great role, because you're playing with the audience. You make them like you, you entertain them, and then, little by little, they start to hate you. Then they hate themselves for liking you in the beginning!

When you get a script, do you think, “Why me?”?

Yes. And if I don't find the answer, I don't make the film. Sometimes I ask the director, but it's mostly to hear what a great actor I am! (Laughs)

And in the case of Speak No Evilso why you?

I know I can walk a fine line between funny and tragic, heroic and creepy. The character I play, Paddy, is the embodiment of a really horrible form of toxic masculinity. Hiring an actor who already expresses that would have been redundant. I'm a sensitive person, very in touch with my feminine side. In real life, I'm not particularly physically threatening, at my fucking six feet! Already in The Last King of ScotlandI played a bad guy, but my youthful and naive air confused the issue.

Nothing to do with Paddy, then?

Yes, of course. Acting is first of all about identifying what there is of the character in you.

And what is there of him in you?

Pride. Ego. Sexuality. A sense of injustice. Working-class pride. All of that is in me, but not in such an excessive way. We all have violence in us. That's the subject of the film, by the way: this animality that lives in us and that we choose to stifle in order to live in society.

You say you're not physically intimidating, but you're super strong in Speak No Evil. We feel like we've found the Beast again. Split And Glass…

THANKS ! Glassthat was six years ago already. I had lost weight in the meantime. Then my second child was born, and I told myself that I had to stop using the excuse of children to not stay in shape. So I started eating a lot and lifting weights. Leg curls, deadlifts, the whole lot… I had been doing this for a year when the script for Speak No Evil has arrived. That was good timing!

Speak No Evil is a remake. You knew the original Danish film, Don't say anything ?

No. I saw it after the shooting, and the two films are interesting to compare, both similar and different. We understand why it caught Jason Blum's eye, it's very entertaining horror, but it also has something to say about society.

Playing a guy as disturbing as Paddy, was it about keeping your distance on set from your partner Scoot McNairy?

Not at all, we were good friends. The shooting was very relaxed, despite the darkness of the film. It was already the case on Split. The two child actors were protected from the horror of the story, they ran around and had a blast. Well, I don't know, maybe in fifteen years, they'll say that we ruined their lives, huh!

Speak No Evilby James Watkins, with James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy… Currently in theaters.

Our review of Speak no evil