Universal’s chilling terror/horror remake, “Speak No Evil” is in theaters this weekend and seemingly already doing well in Thursday night previews. Based on the 2022 Danish film of the same name, this new English-language version stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, and Scoot McNairy in a story about a couple invited to stay at another couple’s country house for the weekend, but things soon escalate menacingly.
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McAvoy was recently on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote the film. In the conversation, he revealed that he was almost in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie but eventually turned it down because it wasn’t the part he wanted. He’s admittedly a big Trekkie, too.
“I came close [to a role],” he said, confirming it was for Abrams’ first film in 2009, but McAvoy declined to reveal what role it was. “Uhhhh, I can’t tell you who. I got offered something, [but] I didn’t want to do that; I suggested I could do something else. They wanted to camera test me, and I was like, ‘You know what? It’s alright, don’t worry about it.’ [But] not because I wouldn’t, but because I just didn’t think it was right.”
“What I said to J.J. about what I thought the role should be and the kind of actor that should be, they absolutely got,” he continued. “But the kind of person I thought, I’m not, is exactly the person who got it, so it was brilliant, and I loved the new one; I loved J.J.’s films; they’re excellent.”
This wasn’t the only big franchise role he passed up. McAvoy also revealed he was up for a character in “Harry Potter” who would later evolve into an iconic villain in the franchise.
“I was nearly in ‘Harry Potter,’ almost, yeah,” he suddenly remembered. “It was the very first movie, and the [role] was—Tom Riddle, he was in the first one, right?” asking about the character played by seven different actors, Richard Bremmer, initially who would turn into the famed archnemesis Voldermort (most famously played by Ralph Fiennes. obviously). “He’s in it for a scene, in a flashback? And they had—I seem to remember it right at the beginning of my career, I auditioned for it, and I think they wanted to put me on a retainer.”
“They offered me something like—it was crazy; I had hardly done any work and myself and— I think ten other actors,” he continued. “They wanted to put us on a retainer so they could hold us and keep us to choose later who it would be; it was a really strange thing. And they offered quite a lot of money for me at that time—it was a ton of money, it was like 40,000 pounds or something like that, but I wouldn’t have been allowed to do any work for about seven months, I think.”
McAvoy said he consulted with his agent—who is still his agent now, some 25 years later—and she said absolutely not, and he passed. Whether McAvoy would have played Voldermort all the way through to Ralph Fiennes’ stage of the franchise is unclear and possibly doubtful since so many actors did inhabit the role, but who knows; maybe his casting could have changed things. The actor also said he hopes to do more sci-fi and comedy, two of his favorite genres that he hasn’t had much chance to explore.
McAvoy is a charismatic figure, and the conversation is engaging, so watch the entire Happy Sad Confused chat below.