James McAvoy is getting candid about pay, including which project paid him “bonkers” residuals.
During a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor admitted that while his residual income typically isn’t consistent, he can’t say that about director M. Night Shyamalan‘s 2016 film Split.
“The only one that really consistently pays me is Split,” he told host Josh Horowitz. “Well, I think it was made for like $6 million or something like that. And let’s say they spent $30 [million] advertising it, and in our first weekend, we made $40 [million].”
“So, we were in profit. So our first residual check came at the end of the first weekend. It was bonkers,” McAvoy added.
Split follows three girls who try to escape after being kidnapped by a man (McAvoy) with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. He also reprised the role in 2016’s Glass.
The Atonement actor went on to praise Shyamalan, saying he’s “super smart in so many ways.”
“The thing that I took away from him was his preparedness because you know he made that film and Glass on incredibly modest budgets and was very focused,” he said, adding that the filmmaker maximized his shooting time by “being incredibly well-prepared” and “communicat[ing] with the crew.”
While McAvoy has enjoyed the residuals from Split, he also admitted that he doesn’t “get too much money from [2008’s] Wanted.”
“You’ve always got a good back end and there’s some in your contract, you get back end here and back end there. I very rarely see anything from anything,” he added. “You get the odd check for like a couple hundred quid here or sometimes you get checks for like 25 cents, and you’re like it literally costs more to post this than it did for me to check it.”
