James McAvoy on California Schemin'

New guy taking my directing jobs. It's it's an incredible accomplishment. We're so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us.

railed through you guys cycling to and from work every day. I just went through everything that you had. I love it. I love it. I think you guys are great.

Um but I was doing my I was going through the edit and we were I screened it an incredible amount of times to colleagues and and people in the industry. Um and kinda didn't really care. And the last time we were two days out from the edit, closing, locking it, and I thought I just need to show it to as many people as possible. And we didn't have time to fill it with non industry people, so I was like, anybody you know.

And it was like it was crazy. It was James Samuel. It was actors. It was Sharon Horgan. It was like Trudy Steyler was there. It was like it was like industry people who have won awards and shit. Anyway, yeah, he came. The guy who wanted to be in but couldn't come in. Anyway, he watched it. I'm two days out of the edit, I'm two days out of locking it.

And we go, We need to go and have a cup of tea with him afterwards. So we have a sit down and have a cup of tea and we go, What do you think? He's like, Yeah, yeah, there's um there's a film in there. Yeah. And you're like,

I asked like, what do you want? And they were like, basically listed off a bunch of American rappers. And they went, Cool, we'll do that. And uh they reinv they re-recorded all their music in American accents. And then the same record label gave them a deal just for simply changing their accents and pretending to be an established rap duo. They created a whole backstory about knowing D twelve, knowing MM and all that, who they then later had to support live on stage. And they styled it out.

you can sacrifice whatever you want. But you're gonna have to look at yourself in the mirror one day and pay the bill and you might not have enough change in your pocket to do that. And these guys didn't and they pay a pretty hefty price because of it. But um yeah, that's ultimately the story.

And we talk a lot on the show about this, you know, idea that like your your flaws are your style, right? The thing that other people perceive, you know, will hold you back will actually be the thing when you do succeed that makes you distinct from everybody else. And like what you're talking about with what they sacrifice.

I love how by the end it's pointed out by by Tessa, their their manager, um, that they yeah they've given up the one thing that actually would have set them apart, that m gave them their voice to begin with. And made them different from D12 or the Beastie Boys, or you know what I mean, whoever that they were like sort of emulating at the time. Um, and it is so tragic.

the collateral damage of them, you know, making this decision to essentially fake it and and she is kind of that collateral damage. And it it hit me so hard when she's like, you did one audition? Like you did one audition and you thought that they should pick you based on one audition and it's just

You didn't have to, you know, you didn't have to change yourself. You could have kept trying, you could have kept pushing. Really loved it. It's a lovely tight hour and forty five minutes. So first of all, thank you for that.

It's too fast, it's too fast You're like, Oh shit, we need to slow it down and I've literally there's only one scene that I shot that isn't in the movie and even that is in the movie. I just play it MOS. And um yeah, it ended up being an o forty five. But yeah, I wanted to make it tight and have momentum and I wanted it to be a movie. I'm making an independent movie, independent cinema.

in a part of the world that usually is about unemployment and drug abuse and I don't know, council states and things like that. Which is where I'm from. I'm from these schemes, these council schemes or projects as you guys call them. And You just don't usually get to make a movie, whatever the semantics behind movie as opposed to film are. I wanted to make a movie and for that I had to have momentum and it had to be not too long. So So yeah, we did a lot of work in developing the script.

Um because I think sometimes when you leave space between the lines, which you are often asked to do as an actor, so that the space to edit and the sound is protected, you lose energy between the actors, which is ultimately what you're trying to capture. You try to capture the magic that is in the space between the two people.

Um the thing that you both create together and sometimes you get in the way of the momentum line to line, beat to beat, and you mess up. Anyway, I was like, Come on guys, like rapid, rapid, like riff off each other, riff off each other, and then I get a film that's running too quick and I'm like, oh God, we need to slow it down. And then the editor's looking at me going like You directed them to be really fast. There's not a lot of breathing space.

even in the material that we have to edit with. So we really had to get creative and mine stuff from bad takes and takes where the camera wasn't good and my D P James Rhodes who did an amazing job. great background in um in live musical performance photography.

success over the last thirty years that when I said I wanted to be a director, I got offered scripts and that's a really privileged position to be in, I'm aware. However, as an actor who's only played four or five Scottish roles, I it was interesting to me that the scripts I got offered were Kind of poverty porn about uh working class Scottish council estate.

And I was like, I definitely want to make them about people in that position but my life growing up in a council estate or a scheme was full of possibility and adventure and big sky. Like huge sky and epic battle and standoff and peril and flight and terror and sex. It's in the teenage pregnancy. I grew up in the teen I know, I know a movie. I grew up in the teenage pregnancy capital of Europe. So and um and then I get these scripts that are about, you know, abuse, domestic drugs.

Alcohol, physical, sexual, and it's just like what the fuck. And then I finally got this, and it was also about. It was a it was a chance to entertain, as well as being about the social realities of what it's like to be from somewhere like that. Um, without ignoring it, it's still tried to grab the audience and make them laugh and make them smile and make them dream and then at the same time honored the fact that it ended pretty badly for these guys, you know.

And um what have we had since then? And it's a country of six million people. Like I know we're not like two hundred and fifty like you guys, but like six million people. We should have made more than a handful of movies in that time. Thank God for I swear last year.

I made a film with John S. Baird called Filth about thirteen years ago. There's been other stuff in between then. I'm not just saying that th that's all we got. But people say to me like, Oh no, it's terrible how it used to be. And I go, like, name me five Scottish movies in the last five years. And you go that's a whole and it's not just a problem for Scotland, this is a problem for

all regions of Great Britain outside of the certain parts of society that are allowed to have stories told about them. And it's the the same story all the world over. Certain regions and certain echelons of society are allowed to have stories told about them. And the rest, kinda, maybe'cause there's a doubt over recruitment at the box office, don't get the opportunity. And art is here not just for recruitment, art is here so that we human beings can have an experience

reflected and we can see ourselves. And so all parts of society need to be reflected. And that's all colours, all genders, all creeds, all sexualities, all everybody. And um it's just really sad that You you walk into a room with the same song but with a different accent and you get a record deal. But you walk into the room with your own accent.

with the same song and you get laughed out the room. Yeah. That just illustrates it right there, you know. So not try to complain about it'cause I don't think it's it's it helps the situation, but um but yeah.

that we had put it there. Yeah. And um it was I was looking for something that illustrated something culturally significant about Scotland that everybody can recognise. And then that we could later reveal was a had a negative connotation when the bus moved. And um it was quite a bold move in that I'm in my directorial debut in the first two minutes of the film I'm making the audience remember the greatest Scottish film ever made and I was very honest.

Potentially quite a treacherous move here. Self sabotage.

The casting like the it's been said anywhere from what, I don't know, seventy five percent to ninety percent of casting dire depending on who you ask, uh ninety percent of a director's job is casting, right? Like your cast is your movie. And your cast is amazing in this movie. They're pitch perfect, right? And there's a

Um,'cause my country doesn't produce movies. I'm I'm looking for complete unknowns, people who've done hardly any work. At that age group, you know. Seamus this was his he hadn't done a professional gig but it when I hired him, he had done one after by the time we made the movie he'd done one gig.

Sam had been working since he was like five years old. Um we started early, we saw a lot of people, saw a ton of people, and we did a lot of chemistry casting switching actors with actors because ultimately there's four distinct main characters in the film. But the film really follows a relationship.

The stakes of the film are a relationship and whether the relationship makes it or not. Whether they get caught or not doesn't really matter. It's whether the relationship will make it or not. So chemistry was more important than individual actor um being great? I got lucky in that the first person I ever auditioned in my life as a director was Samuel Bottomley. Wow. And I was like and he came in with the chin strap and he just looked like Billy so much, but also

He's the first person I saw. Billy was the most difficult part to cast. Um, because well, Gavin's role i uh is more troubled and there's I guess there's more handholds for an actor to get into the role of Gavin. He's got more inner turmoil, he's got more Isms, he's got more this, that and the next thing going on. Actors came in knowing what to do with that role. So it was really about who's who's the best at executing it. And Seamus was unbelievable.

Billy has to be happy. Billy has to be capable of happiness and Billy has to be relaxed. Billy's got to be a movie star. And um you can you can't you can't action that, you can't check off that, you can't unit beats and ejected that, you can't learn that, you can't technique that, you can't Act that. You just gotta be that. And and Sam's just like Chill as fuck and so cool.

and capable of being authentically himself. And so uh it he was the first person I saw. And I thought is if I can get him in the film with Seamus and their chemistry works, we're gonna be great. But we didn't know that that was gonna work. So we did a whole big mix up, lots of different actors with lots of different people. Seamus made everybody else better.

Sam made everybody else better when they worked with them. They lifted people up around them. There was lots of people who were really good, just not like necessarily right. And then I put them both together and they kinda cancelled each other out and they were both really shit. for the first for the first take. And I was like, Oh, this is a disaster. This is awful.

These are my guys. These are the ones that I know can bring it home and they're not doing it. And they were just too busy watching each other.'Cause they both like game recognized game or something like that. And then I was like, Okay, what'd I do? And I went, I th I guess what we'd do is we'd go again. Yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll go again. You know, the classic, the brilliant idea, director intervenes, we'll go again. Yeah. And um we went from

She was uh one of the managers from the label who was like on to them and trying to figure them out. She took against their kind of juvenile chauvinism and juvenile sort of misogynistic kind of humour at times. Um uh quite rightly so, and sniffed a rat and she kinda went after them and she was exposing them and looking for their passports and all that. I was like, it doesn't

the the threat and the drama of are they gonna get caught or not, I'm just not interested in. It's just their relationship and whether it makes a difference. So I was like so what happens to that character of Amy? And I was like She should be an ally who's also getting screwed over and also a representative of the culture that they've appropriated. Yeah. Um so I was like, Great, I've nailed it, I've I've written a great part.

And it's really responsible'cause I'm like we've got a a movie about two white guys that are appropriate and um

A couple of people could do it but they were too old or they were the wrong age or the wrong kind of chemistry. And then finally Rebecca came in and just smashed it out of the park and we were really, really lucky. So casting was long, um, but ultimately it ended up going for pretty much the first instinct. And I d I don't know if that's a lesson for the future or not. Well

You've worked with an incredible array of directors. And so coming to your first movie, was there anything that you brought here where you thought, Man, I loved what this director did. You don't have to name names. Um, or you know, I I really don't want to do what this director did. Please name names. Um, no, I'm just kidding. Um

Just that I would be lucky to emulate as well. But I've not tried to emulate their style or internet, but that was something. Joe Wright, who I did atonement with that we talked about before we started recording, Chris, which is an interesting conversation that we might have to include.

it's funny at this bit, they have a moment of something's beautiful and intangible and we don't know whether it's going left or right and then we undercut it with a bit of humor or it's a bit of tragedy or whatever. I want the audience to feel this. And I want it to be snappy, snappy, snappy, or I want it to be breathy, breathy, breathy. We're gonna do this, this, this, this, and if we get time we'll do this, right? That's what I'll do, guys. Ready? Break.

And it's like everybody just suddenly goes, Pfft, I feel like a filmmaker today because there's so much like chain of command sometimes on a film set that stop People feeling like they're part of it. That term hurry up and wait. Everybody's like hurrying up to wait for their moment where they have to come in. And I've been on films where the the crew haven't even got the script, they've not even read the script. Not because they haven't chose to read it, they've not been given it.

And all right, maybe H O D's have or something like that. But yeah, so that was something that I've chosen to do and and rip off from him. I'd love to hear what the crew that I worked with said about this. They might be like, Yeah, we don't need that man. Yeah, that was a real drag. Like we just wanted to get, you know, get a cup of tea and all that. Yeah. Um and then the other person that I completely ripped off was Jamie Lloyd. Don't know if you're aware of Jamie Lloyd's work.

He's a theater director. sort of was the Enfant de Ribla. I think he's probably slightly too old to be called that anymore. Um uh terrible infant in French for anybody who doesn't speak French. I don't but I know that that means. And um I've been working with him for about seventeen years. And he's probably the most significant director actor relationship I've ever had.

watching him change as a director and and refine his process, like he's doing less and less and less over the years. Not just for me, because he's worked with me loads and I've become more experienced, but with all the candidates. He's doing less in terms of acute, minute direction, but he's doing so much in empowering the performer. And making you as a performer feel like You are more important to me than the character.

as long as the story is being told, I don't care whether your your characterization has the right length or the right funny walk and the patch and the whatever the f it's like I'm here for the audience are here for the performer. telling them the story'cause that's what we are. We're not actors. We're not this this is my thing. And forgive me if anybody discrees me. You're totally allowed to and do your own thing and it's cool. But we're not filmmakers.

We're not D Ps, we're not boom operators, we're not actors, we're not head and makeup department, we're not any of these things. We are all storytellers. And um sometimes the craft becomes the end goal. Sometimes cinema becomes the end goal. I'm here to make good cinema and you're no you're not. You're here to tell a story well. And what I loved about what Jamie has done with me and many casts that I've worked with with him is that when we walk on stage, we feel like we are enough.

And we are empowered and whatever we bring from our lives is what we are gonna fire out through that on stage with him. I try to do that with my cast as well. And i for a young cast Two of which were massively inexperienced, I think that really helped. So yeah, I would name check everybody I've stolen from.

Incredible that this film exists. Um, what went wrong? Um, there was one tiny scene in the film where it said, um Seamus's character, Gavin, skateboards and like stacks it and hurt himself, right? We've got that scene in the film. Yeah. And I was like, do you know what? Like he's a hip hop guy, he's a skater guy, skater culture. He should be skateboarding. So I s I was like, Seamus.

You think you can get skateboarding uh and take some lessons and stuff and I'll we'll pay for it and all that. He gets to set he gets to unit bay or like the production office three weeks before we start shooting. I'm like, So how's those skateboarding lessons been gone? He's like, Oh no, I've not been doing them, man. Oh mate. All right. So I I I like got them in there, got them in the escape community and I got them going, right?

And uh but I only needed Seamus doing it. Samuel Bottom, they goes like what he's skateboarding in the film and I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, Well I'm skateboarding in the film then. He's like, Ah I'm slightly worried we're a low budget, independent movie

They bond, the insurance company, like they're gonna like this now. It's like I'm skateboarding in the film. Like, all right, big man, no problem. You go skateboard as well. Great. They both get hard at it, they're really making great progress in a week and a half before the movie gets started before we roll. Uh Sam breaks his elbow. We have it on film. We have it. They were filming each other on iPhones and so we have it documented.

um the moment that he broke his elbow. And we were like, Oh god, so that happened. So the only time you see Sam um skateboarding in the film is like the four days that we shot in London at the very end. We shot Almost entirely in Glasgow and none of the film is set in Glasgow. It's all set in Dundee or London. Um and that was the last little bit that he was able to skateboard.

And we're just like, This is somewhere that D twelve also played and we're like, Well, why don't we have them just come here instead? Yeah. Um and we were able to fill it with two thousand people.

They stayed, the Glasgow crowd, all two thousand of them stayed for like two hours and let me direct them and like they were amazing. They were amazing.

But I was like, That's gotta go in the film. That's such a slice of where I'm from, it's gotta go in the film. So we did that. But the music in general and all the photography for the music was like a real like I say, like

I I I'm not a f I'm weirdly not a fan of musicals or biopics and I just made a musical biopic for my directorial debut. And um it wasn't until like eight weeks out in prep that I was like, I've got to make a music film. I was like, how am I gonna do this? And um James Rhodes was exceptional at helping me conceptualise how we go from what looked like a concert to also being inside their experience on stage as well.

And then the other thing about music is just trying to get the money together for a soundtrack was was ridiculous. We had an amazing um composer, Ben Rafferty, who did the substance.