Throughout his career across screens big and small, Scottish actor James McAvoy has accumulated quite the eccentric collection of roles. Perhaps best known for his portrayal of the young Professor X in Fox’s X-Men movies – and with it, a foray into blockbuster territory – McAvoy has turned in some truly spectacular, intense performances across the likes of Atonement, Trance and Filth, a role for which he nabbed the Best Actor gong at 2014’s British Independent Film Awards.
And so, following what is surely one of his final appearances as Charles Xavier in X-Men: Apocalypse, the Scott is primed to circle back to more dramatic affair with Split, a psychological drama hailing from the incomparable M. Night Shyamalan.
Heralding a creative reunion between Shyamalan and horror maestro Jason Blum – the pair had previously worked together on domestic thriller The Visit – Split places McAvoy in the shoes of Kevin, a troubled man harboring a personality disorder that defies belief. He’s not bipolar; rather, our lead character displays signs of having no less than 23 different personalities, and its only when McAvoy’s fractured protagonist captures three seemingly innocent women that his brain taps into a darker shard known as “The Beast.”
Also starring Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula and Haley Lu Richardson as Kevin’s three captives, Split hits theaters on January 20, 2017.
While the mental divisions of those with dissociative identity disorder have long fascinated and eluded science, it is believed that some can also manifest unique physical attributes for each personality, a cognitive and physiological prism within a single being.
Though Kevin (James McAvoy) has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch), Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him—as well as everyone around him—as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
