James McAvoy says a botched biopsy collapsed his lungs and nearly killed him

Actor James McAvoy has revealed that a botched lung biopsy left his lungs collapsed and nearly killed him, in a health scare that kept him in hospital for several weeks. Speaking recently on Dax Shepard's 'Armchair Expert' podcast, the 47-year-old described recovering from a serious infection and collapsed lungs before pushing his body to its limits for his role in the 2019 film 'Glass'.

McAvoy said doctors had seen a shadow in his lung and wanted to biopsy it to check whether it was cancer. The procedure punctured his lung. The good news, he said, was that the shadow was not cancer — but the biopsy itself was botched.

Two days later, he said, he was at home alone in bed one night when his lungs collapsed. He described the moment as crazy — alone, suddenly unable to rely on the organ he needed to breathe.

He then spent two or three weeks in hospital while doctors tried everything to clear his lungs, without success. Eventually, he recalled, they told him they would need to cut him open in a major operation, going in with something like soapy water — basically dish soap, as he put it — to clean him out and scoop everything away.

After that ordeal came a different kind of battle. For 'Glass', directed by M. Night Shyamalan, he had to bulk up again to play Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with dissociative identity disorder who has 24 distinct personalities.

McAvoy first played the character in 2016's 'Split', the follow-up to 2000's 'Unbreakable'. In 'Split', the 24th personality, 'The Beast' — with superhuman strength, speed, durability and pain suppression — emerges near the end as the central threat. In 'Glass', he was the Beast for most of the film, so, as he put it, he needed to do 'the real thing'.

He told Shyamalan he would need a trainer. When the director offered to hire one from the local gym, McAvoy rejected the idea. He had worked with local gym trainers before, but this time he needed someone who could turn his physique into that of a figure from Greek mythology.

The trainer who eventually worked with him was, in McAvoy's words, amazing — with him constantly, regulating what he ate and training him just right. But the first four weeks were pure rehabilitation.

At that stage he could walk but could not run, cycle or jog. The trainer worked on rehabilitation and functional movement, and only then put the pounds on him really fast. The journey from a hospital bed to a superhuman screen physique took four or five months of intense work.

McAvoy has also recently spoken about being bullied on the set of the hit HBO miniseries 'Band of Brothers'. Appearing on 'Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen', he said that on his first day as a professional actor out of acting school, one co-star organised a group to stand pointing and laughing at him for about three minutes.

He did not name the co-star, and stressed that not everyone joined in — Dexter Fletcher and Robin Laing took him aside and welcomed him. He rated the overall experience nine out of ten, but that first day, he said, felt like a two. The ten-part 2001 miniseries told the story of Easy Company of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division, based on interviews, letters and journals of real soldiers.

After his single episode on that show, McAvoy rose to stardom with roles in 'The Chronicles of Narnia', 'Wanted', 'Atonement' and the 'X-Men' franchise. Surviving collapsed lungs and then transforming his body for 'Glass' now stands as one of the most extreme chapters of that career.