James McAvoy Sings Belinda Carlisle in ‘Speak No Evil’

James McAvoy unleashes his inner pop star in his new movie.

“Speak No Evil,” hitting theaters on Sept. 13, features the 45-year-old Scottish actor as a dominant husband and father with a lot more than a few secrets to hide. In a memorable scene, he sings Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” offering a rare glimpse into a different side of his character.

“I got to sing some Belinda Carlisle, which is really a high point when you hear how bad my voice is,” McAvoy joked at a special San Diego Comic-Con preview screening on Friday, July 26. He added dryly, “You’ll be like, ‘Wow, they let him do that on camera.’ Yeah, that was probably the high point for me.”

In the film, McAvoy stars opposite Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy, who play an American couple visiting an Italian country house. What starts as an off-putting visit turns menacing thanks to McAvoy’s character, Paddy. His wife, portrayed by Aisling Franciosi, and mute son Ant, played by Dan Hough, add layers of mystery to the plot.

Directed by James Watkins, the Blumhouse Productions movie is a remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same name. “I didn’t see the original until after we finished this one on purpose,” McAvoy told PEOPLE exclusively at Comic-Con. He explained, “It’s really just about creating something that came naturally from your response to the material rather than, ‘Hey, that was a great movie.’ Luckily I hadn’t seen it. Otherwise, I think it would have been more difficult to film.”

Davis, 37, shared that she had “no anxiety” in tackling a new version of a recent classic. “When you do a version of Shakespeare, if you do a new version of ‘King Lear’ or ‘Macbeth,’ you never treat it as a remake. It’s like your own spin on it,” she said.

Director Christian Tafdrup’s Danish “Speak No Evil” is a movie that “was great and deserved to be reinterpreted because it was so great,” Davis added. “And I think doing it with a different set of couples with different cultural touchstones and anxieties really made it its own, fresh thing.”

As for potential upcoming projects, McAvoy responded with enthusiasm to the idea of reprising his role as Charles Xavier from the “X-Men” movies. “I think you’ll definitely see Charles making an appearance [in the Marvel Cinematic Universe],” he teased. “That’s up to those guys, and they’re so good at doing what they do and planning these things out and calibrating what comes when, that they know when that will be.”

“Speak No Evil” is in theaters on Sept. 13.

Source: PEOPLE