'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts' director says he spent a lot of time and money changing Mirage after being blown away by Pete Davidson's audition

• Critics have praised Pete Davidson's performance as Mirage in "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts."
• Director Steven Caple Jr. told Insider that elements of Mirage were changed to fit Davidson.

"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" director Steven Caple Jr. said that he made "costly" but worthwhile changes to the scene-stealing Autobot Mirage to better fit Pete Davidson after being blown away by his audition.

Critics have praised Davidson's performance in the seventh live-action "Transformers" movie, in which he voices an Autobot who befriends Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos).

Speaking to Insider at the European premiere of "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," Caple said that Davidson's audition surprised him, leading to him making some changes to the character.

"Pete Davidson was insane because when he came in, we rewrote a lot of the lines," the "Creed II" director said.

"We started to improv a bit," he continued. "We started to really dive into the character and then we also had to change the animation. Which is costly but it was worth it when you see his performance."

In a sitdown interview with Insider, Caple expanded on some of the changes he made to Davidson's character, adding: "We didn't have to reshoot anything."

"Pete Davidson came in a little later on the project as we were trying to cast and find the right voice, and he just did some things in the audition that were great," Caple explained.

"So I actually borrowed some stuff from the audition and made it lines for Mirage. The whole, 'I like it a lot,' when Mirage is trying to do the fist bump — he improv'd that in the audition and I was like, 'This is fun.'"

"Then there were other things, too, but we were so far along in visual effects that I had to go back and make sure we changed the face to lipsync what he had made up," added the filmmaker.

"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" is in theaters now.