X-Men Star James McAvoy Reveals He Almost Died Last Year

James McAvoy has often faced perilous situations on screen, with characters like Professor X in the X-Men movies or Kevin Wendell Crumb in Glass coming close to death all the time. But as it turns out, the Scottish actor had a genuine scare last year, when a routine operation almost took his life.

While speaking with Men’s Journal (via ET Canada), McAvoy talked about how a biopsy for a spot on his lungs (which turned out to be nothing) resulted in him coming down with a serious infection that left him hospitalized for three weeks and could have been fatal. “It nearly killed me,” the actor explained. “It was very scary. A terrifying f-cking thing to go through.”

Though the experience last April was a harrowing one, the star says it’s given him more perspective on his work/home life balance and has made him keen to spend less time shooting movies and more time doing regular things with his kids, like picking them up from school.

As a result of his new outlook, McAvoy intends to make more movies back in his native Britain and also aims to direct as well. Overall, the star says he’ll be much more selective about how he invests his time. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slagging off my industry,” he opened up. “I love my job. Love it… But there’s got to be more balance.”

McAvoy’s understandable realignment of his career objectives makes it sound like he’s not going to commit to too many more time-consuming X-Men movies. That kind of works with where the franchise is, too, as this June’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix will likely be the last one with the current cast. There’s the possibility that some could be carried over to the MCU, once the Disney/Fox merger goes through, but McAvoy himself has said he doesn’t see how that would work.

In any case, you can now catch the actor opposite Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass, in cinemas now.