James McAvoy has revealed he had to convince movie bosses to hire him a live-in personal trainer after suffering an infection which almost killed him.
The actor said he “nearly died” and was unwell and badly out of shape after a surgical scar became seriously infected.
But he had just months to prepare for the part of muscle-bound psychotic character The Beast in director M Night Shyamalan’s superhero thriller Glass.
The X-Men star first told in 2019 how he spent three weeks in hospital with the infection after undergoing a routine biopsy when a shadow on his lung was discovered.
McAvoy, 41, has now revealed the physical toll of the health battle meant he had to use a personal trainer for the first time.
He had previously carried out all his physical training on his own but admitted he needed help to bulk up for his role as The Beast, who is shirtless for most of the 2019 film.
He said: “I read the script and I had to have my shirt off in a parking lot for, like, three-quarters of the film.
“I had just been in hospital, I wasn’t well, I had nearly died, there was a whole lot of things like that.
“I read this script and I thought, ‘Oh no, I’ve got to be The Beast not just in a tunnel in the dark at the end for two minutes but for the entire film’.
“I was like, ‘Hi is that M Night Shyamalan? You’re going to need to spend a lot of money on a personal trainer and dietician who’s going to live with me for five months before we make this film’.
"And to be honest, fair play to him, he fronted up the money to get that guy and he was an amazing trainer.
“There was a lot of back and forth about whether I needed it and I was like, ‘I absolutely need this and I think your movie absolutely needs this’.”
Glasgow-born McAvoy said he previously felt embarrassed to make demands for help when working on movies.
He added: “It was one of these weird false humility things.”
The actor was speaking in an online acting masterclass interview in aid of Edinburgh Youth Theatre.
Last year, he donated £10,000 to the theatre to help ensure its classes can be accessible to all during the pandemic.
