‘X-Men’ Star James McAvoy To Host ‘Saturday Night Live’

X-Men and Glass star James McAvoy is heading to Saturday Night Live.

NBC revealed on Monday that McAvoy will take on hosting duties for the sketch comedy series for the first time on Saturday, January 26 where he will be joined by musical guest Meek Mill.

McAvoy’s appearance on Saturday Night Live is set for one week after the opening of M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass, in which he reprises his role of Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with a number of personalities including the terrifying Beast, from 2016’s Split.

While the Beast persona had minimal screen time in Split, the superhuman strength-possessing character is set to have a much larger presence in Glass. It’s something that McAvoy told Entertainment Weekly required embracing a new physique in order to convey the persona’s horrifying presence.

“I realized that if [director] M. Night Shyamalan’s world is suggesting that the Marvel world and the DC worlds, and all the comic book worlds, they grew up out of something that is possibly true, then the aesthetic of those worlds should maybe come from something that’s possibly true as well,” McAvoy said. “So, I thought, it I’m going to run about with my shirt off for half the movie I’ve kind of got to buy into the comic book superhero aesthetic a little bit, you know. Which I didn’t necessarily have to do massively for the first movie, because, really, I only had my shirt off for two minutes at the end. I was in good shape, and I made sure I was toned and all that stuff, but I thought I’d better actually get bigger this time.”

He added, “So, yeah. I trained for about five months, and ate a ton of food and this guy Magnus Lygdback, got me into the biggest and muscliest shape I’ve ever been in. There are guys out there that are much bigger and musclier, but for me, I did real good.”

While Glass may be the next big thing hitting theaters for McAvoy in 2019, in addition to the gig hosting Saturday Night Live, the actor has a lot more to look forward to this year. McAvoy will reprise his role as Charles Xavier/Professor X in the next movie in the X-Men franchise, Dark Phoenix which is expected in theaters on June 7 and will also play the adult version of Bill Denbrough in It: Chapter Two, the sequel to 2017’s It, which is due out September 6.

Are you excited for McAvoy to be hosting Saturday Night Live later this month? Let us know in the comments below.

Glass opens in theaters January 18.

McAvoy can also be seen in Dark Phoenix, opening on June 7, and It: Chapter Two opening September 6.