James McAvoy Comments on Emma Corrin’s Performance in Deadpool and Wolverine

It’s safe to say James McAvoy is a fan of Deadpool and Wolverine, and especially of Emma Corrin’s performance.

Corrin plays Cassandra Nova, the telepathic twin of McAvoy’s Professor X. While McAvoy doesn’t appear in the film, he has seen it, and shared a glowing review with Men’s Journal.

“She was brilliant,” says McAvoy. “I thought they were absolutely brilliant. Em did a cracking job, but it's a different role. It's a different character as well, so it's hard to comment specific to what I did, but I thought they did an amazing job. Really sinister as well, quite scary.”

With McAvoy giving Corrin’s role a big thumbs up, could we see him share the screen in a Marvel film in the future? It would be his first role in the MCU, after his string of performances as Professor X in 20th Century Studios' X-Men film franchise. “Ah, who knows,” he says. “Anything is possible, man.”

Cassandra Nova first appeared in New X-Men #114 (July 2001). In the comics, Charles Xavier shared a womb with her, and actually killed her before the pair were born because he sensed her evil presence. As a result, Cassandra became telepathically entangled with Xavier, meaning the two have a shared history that fans would love to see unfold in a future Marvel movie.

McAvoy gave a full interview with Men’s Journal for the release of Speak No Evil, which is now available to buy or rent at home. Scroll down to read the fascinating full interview in which we chat about how McAvoy got into character for his villainous role, and how he bulked up to pack on the muscle.

James McAvoy interview

Men’s Journal: You obviously play a very disturbed individual in this film, but this time you're within a family unit. Did you find it difficult to portray the character alongside a partner and kids in a domestic setting?

McAvoy: No, not at all. Playing it with a partner made it easier. One of the things that makes him interesting, I think, is that he seems to be in a loving, love-filled, joy-filled relationship and getting to paint that picture that had had violent undertones, with abusive undertones, was extra dynamic to explore.

So actually, the richer it is, the the more complex it is, I'd say, the more work there is to get into, but the the easier it is to tell a good story then, because it's just a more complex, interesting story.

Men’s Journal: There's that scene where you're trying to get your son to dance and you're manipulating his legs and it's very believable, and you look really mean. How prepared were the kids for how mean you're actually going to come across?

McAvoy: Do you know what? I don't know. You need to ask them because they might tell you this movie really messed them up but from my perspective, those two had an amazing summer kicking about a farm in what was a really nice summertime and doing schooling and running about the woods and playing games with each other and having a really good time In between takes.

We kept it really light, nobody was trying to stay in the mood of the scene, and we just snapped out of it which, to be honest with you, I generally do anyway. But it felt really important that we were able to goof around and just have a good laugh in between takes, because you didn't want it getting too serious when a couple of young kids are there, like you wouldn't send your kids to work at that age in any other industry, so it needs to be fun for them.

Men’s Journal: Obviously you're a very imposing figure in the film. What was your regime like to get in shape?

McAvoy: I was. Strangely enough, I didn't get into that shape for this film. I just spent a couple of years concentrating on heavy weights. The script came around at the time that I was sort of built like that. I am no longer built like that. I haven't been to the gym since I think February. and I've lost a lot of muscle, but I was just the muscliest I've ever been.

And it just worked out perfect timing for this part. So, regime-wise, it was just what I was doing, but what I had been doing was doing a lot of Olympic lifting. I was doing lots of deadlifts and bench press and squats and filling it out with free weights and all that in between, and eating a lot. Eating four or five meals a day, tons of protein, tons of carbs, to fuel the growth. That was kind of what I was doing just for a couple of years, for fun, for myself, not necessarily for any part in particular.

Men’s Journal: What was the initial role that you were getting in shape for? I know you were in shape for glass as well

McAvoy: Last I got big for? but that I mean that was 2017, so that was quite some time ago, and I never really let that go completely. I kind of kept it up. But in the couple of years before this I stepped it up a little bit and just decided to try and do the 1,000-pound challenge, which is between bench deadlift and squat you lift 1,000 pounds, and so I managed to do that. I was delighted with myself, just set myself a target, but that was just before. I probably hit that as I was like four weeks out from doing this movie.

I tried to make sure that I was a little softer for the start. I was kind of big. I was actually carrying a few extra pounds in fat as well, and I tried to keep that for the beginning of the film because I wanted it to look a little bit softer. But by the end of the movie I planned it that by the end of the movie I would be leaner and more defined so that when I need to be a bit more threatening and stuff, the muscle shows a bit more.

And also, I just did that stupid s*** that actors do. Before a take, towards the end of the movie, when I did have bare arms and bare shoulders and all that kind of stuff and my neck muscles were showing, I just made sure that those things were all pumped and as big as they could be for the 40 minutes after you do your pump. Do you know what I mean?

Related: James McAvoy Interview: How Actor Bulked Up For Speak No Evil

Men’s Journal: Yeah, it definitely comes across.

McAvoy: I was pleased, because sometimes you do these things and then you see the movie and you go like, oh f***, I mean it doesn't really show, but it did show in this when I wanted it to show and when I wanted to look softer, like at the beginning of the movie. I kind of hide his threat a little bit, even though I think from the beginning of the movie you know he's a wrong one. You just kind of hide the physical threat a little bit at the beginning.

Men’s Journal: You've been in loads of franchises. We have the X-Men. The Unbreakable Trilogy. What specific franchise would you most like to return to?

McAvoy: Ooh, that's a good question. I don't know, maybe something new, so maybe not superhero, maybe not a thriller-horror, which I guess are the two genres that I've done. What other franchises? Is there something sci-fi? Ooh that'd be good. Yeah, I love sci-fi and I've done hardly any of it since I was in my early 20s.

Men’s Journal: Could we see you in a proper sci-fi franchise?

McAvoy: There are no offers of anything in that genre right now, but I'm open to anything. It's always just got to be a good script, though, Just because I want to be in a particular genre. It's got to be a good role. It's got to be a good arc. It's got to be a good piece of writing. That's the most important thing.

Men’s Journal: I wanted to get your take on Emma Corrin, who plays the twin of your X-men character, Professor X. What did you think of her performance in Deadpool and Wolverine?

McAvoy: She was brilliant. I thought they were absolutely brilliant. Em did a cracking job, but it's a different role. It's a different character as well, so it's hard to comment specific to what I did, but I thought they did an amazing job. Really sinister as well, quite scary.

Men’s Journal: I'm probably not alone in this, but I would love to see you team up in a Marvel movie.

McAvoy: Who knows? Anything is possible, man,

Men’s Journal: That's good to hear. Back to Speak No Evil. It's based on a Danish film from 2022. How did you want to differentiate your performance from the original performance, if you even did want to differentiate it?

McAvoy: I didn't watch it until I'd finished our one, for the simple fact that I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and I didn't want to be curtailed or limited by what someone else had done. I thought maybe I read the script and I have a response to it and I go, right, I'm going to do this. And I go, oh no wait, the other guy did that. I didn't want to be worrying about what the other person did.

I wanted to be free to make the same choices if those choices came naturally and make different choices if those choices came naturally, without having to compare it. So, luckily, I had never seen the film. I watched the trailer and after 30 seconds of the trailer I pressed pause and I was like, stop, what are you doing? And so, yeah, I waited. I watched their film the day after we finished our film.

Men’s Journal: Is that how you like to approach remakes and sequels and things like that?

McAvoy: Yeah, if I haven't been exposed to the original material before then I'd rather not know anything about it. It's the same if I'm doing a play. When I did Cyrano de Bergerac I mean I'd seen Cyrano de Bergerac on stage once before I did it and I think I was like 26 or something like that when I saw it at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Luckily, by the time I came to do it I was, what age? I'd been like 38, 39. A long time had gone by and I could barely remember that performance.

And also ours was just such an incredibly different kind of take on it. But I was really glad that I wasn't stuck thinking about what someone else had done and I could just approach it fresh. You don't remake a play, do you? You just, you just do the play. You don't really make Macbeth, you just do Macbeth, whether you've seen it before or not. And I kind of feel the same with movies. But as I say I was, I was glad I hadn't. I hadn't seen the original film, because it just felt like we were just making our own film.

Men’s Journal: The whole movie is basically you gradually going further and further, pushing the envelope, and there's that moment where you feed the vegetarian wife the meat, which is a particularly horrible moment. How did you land on the right tone? Were there takes where you went a bit too far and a bit too cartoony and you were reined back, or maybe vice versa?

McAvoy: There were definitely times where because I think our I haven't watched the original film I think our film goes a little bit more for comedy in these uneasy moments. There were definitely times where we were probably going for the laugh too much or sometimes we were going too sinister and too scary.

And actually the film probably survives and does best when it's on a tightrope between the kind of absurd comedy of the situation and the scariness and the sinister threat of the situation, and sometimes quite a lot of the time it…certainly in the first two thirds you didn't want to go too far either way, otherwise the potential for either to happen at any time sort of gets eroded and it starts feeling like, ok, we're just getting into scariness now or we're just getting into the comedy of it now, and you wanted to at all times kind of have the potential for both to happen at any time in the audience's anticipation.

And so that was a calibration and we generally knew when we were going too far in one direction or not, and if we didn't, the director was really good at pulling us back to kind of the center ground.

Men’s Journal: I want to talk about the video game you did, 12 Minutes, with Daisy Ridley and Wilem Dafoe. How was your experience on that and would you like to act in another game?

McAvoy: That was an incredibly intense acting experience because it was just me and Daisy and a recording booth for like three solid days, eight hour days, just non-stop. And it's not like you go, all right, we're gonna get set up, you've got 15 minutes, come back and do it again. Or it was just like go, go, go, let's do the next scene, let's do the next scene. And it was a lot of emotional stuff actually. It was really intense. I was exhausted by that. Would I like to do another computer game again if it's a good story, good script, good character? Definitely, but it's got to be…I've been offered loads, but you've got to have the right material at all times,

Men’s Journal: It sounds very different to acting on a film set.

McAvoy: Yeah, I found in general, voice acting, because that one wasn't like motion capture or anything, which may be different again, it might have a different kind of tempo, but voice acting in general is exhausting because there's no set-ups. It's just, there's no reason to stop. If they've booked you for eight hours, you go solid for eight hours and it's emotional setups. There's no reason to stop. So if they've booked you for eight hours, you go solid for eight hours and it's emotional and it's big and it's it's high stakes for just eight solid hours. So, yes, that's definitely voice acting. I've found to be quite brutal sometimes.

Men’s Journal: I guess on set when you nail the take, then it's like okay, that's done.

McAvoy: A little bit, but, and it's the same for voice acting, but the difference being that you've nailed the take. That's done, okay, what we're going to do next. Okay, the camera crew have got to set up and we've got to clear that you've got time to kind of reset, whereas in a recording studio you're like, okay, that was great, now the next one, let's have another mental breakdown. You're like, oh, my god, okay, let's go. So there's minutes between scenes in voice acting a lot of the time.

Men’s Journal: Have you got any funny anecdotes from the set of Speak No Evil?

McAvoy: Aisling Franciosi, who played Kira, and I had to do a scene at the end of a dinner scene where we go to Mike's restaurant. The song Black Velvet comes on and we had to go and do like a salaciously sexy dance with each other, and that was probably the most embarrassing, terrifying thing that Aisling and I had to do in the entire film.

We were more nervous about having to do that than anything else because we just knew we were going to look like tits, and then pretty much the entire sequence of us dancing for four minutes got cut. I would say, for f**k's sake, the things you put yourself through as an actor and then they end up on the cutting room floor.