Movies James McAvoy reveals he was nearly cast as Tom Riddle in Harry Potter He who must not be James-ed. By Jessica Wang Jessica Wang Jessica is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where she covers TV, movies, and pop culture. Her work has appeared in Bustle, NYLON, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, and more. She lives in California with her dog. EW's editorial guidelines Published on September 13, 2024 04:39PM EDT Bloody hell! On the advice of his agent, James McAvoy dropped out of consideration for the role of Tom Riddle in Harry Potter despite the fact that he'd be making bank from Gringotts. Appearing on the latest episode of Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor explained that remaining in contention would have kept him out of work for seven whole months. James McAvoy reveals why meeting his celebrity crush Jennifer Aniston 'wasn’t great' "I was nearly in Harry Potter," McAvoy shared. "I remember it was right at the beginning of my career. I auditioned for it and I think they wanted to put me on a retainer. I'd hardly done any work and me and I think ten other actors, they wanted to put us in a retainer so that they could hold us and keep us to choose later." James McAvoy; Christian Coulson as Tom Riddle. Michael Loccisano/Getty; Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more. It "was a really strange thing," the Split actor said of the process. "And they offered quite a lot of money. For me at that time, it was a ton of money. It was like 40 thousand pounds or something like that. I’d done very little work and I wouldn’t be able to do any work for about seven months, I think." When McAvoy consulted with his agent, "She was like, 'Absolutely not. Don't do that. We're gonna go do something else," he recalled, sharing that he ended up doing a play where he got "booed by a homophobic gentleman." "I did that instead and got paid I think 275 pounds a week," McAvoy said. But hey, no regrets. "It was part of the making of me," said the actor. "I was actually learning and doing all that." The revelation is particularly magical as McAvoy is often fan casted as Tom Riddle, later revealed to be Lord Voldemort in the franchise. Christian Coulson would go on to play the role in Chamber of Secrets. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, the nephew of Voldemort actor Ralph Fiennes, also played a younger version in the Half-Blood Prince. James McAvoy reveals M. Night Shyamalan cast him in Split after 'crazy' EW Comic-Con party The BAFTA winner's agent surely isn't losing sleep over the missed opportunity, as McAvoy's varied career has since spanned lauded roles in Split, Glass, Atonement, X-Men, and Speak No Evil, among others. Watch McAvoy's interview in full above.