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- [00:01]
A
Seeking, pushing, optimizing, creating, learning, discovering. At Aramco, we believe in harnessing the power of data to push the limits of what's possible. That's how we deliver reliable energy to millions across the world. Aramco, an integrated energy and chemicals company. Learn more about us@aramco.com
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B
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A
Guys, this is. This is kind of weird.
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C
Is it weird?
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A
I listen to you guys a lot.
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B
Stop.
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C
Here's what's weird for me. When I was in college, a girl I dated, we saw Atonement together. And I think we both realized we weren't for each other because I fell in love with Keira Knightley and she fell in love with you. And we drew, like, drawings for each other. We were weird, artsy kids and I drew a drawing of you from Atonement for her. It's a very weird time in my life, so it's very weird to be to you right now.
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A
My natural curiosity just means I want to see the picture.
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C
It's like a full shot of you in your, like, Dunkirk army gear. Maybe she still has it. I don't know.
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A
I hope so.
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C
We don't stay in touch, but anyway, Lizzie, please speak.
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B
Gladly. Hi, welcome.
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A
Hello. And action.
- [02:32]
C
Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to a special bonus episode of this is Crazy. Your favorite podcast, Full Stop. What Went Wrong? A podcast that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone your first movie, let alone the first movie you've made as a listener of what Went Wrong. That's right. We are talking to.
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B
Yeah. Cause that's the most important qualifier.
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C
It's the most important decision our guest has ever made. We are talking to the incredible actor, director, producer James McAvoy. James, thank you so much for listening to the show. And thank you for being here today to talk about your incredible directorial debut, California Scheming, a movie that I watched and loved, and then also was like, come on, he's good looking. He's a great director. He's a great actor. Like, this kind of Hollywood's contracting. There are not a lot of directing jobs around. And here comes this 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.
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A
Thank you so much for having me, guys. I am a massive fan of the pod, as people sometimes call it. I always feel it's slightly reductive. So I'm going to call it the Podcast. Yeah. I've been listening to you guys for ever since I started editing California Scheming. And I just needed something to get me out of the movie and out of my head about movies. And my editor, Joe Sawyer, was like, you need to listen to more movie stuff. And he put me on you guys. And I, like, 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.
- [04:13]
C
We appreciate that.
- [04:14]
B
I'm thrilled to hear that. I'm also terrified. Cause I'm always like, do the people that we're talking about listen to this podcast? And obviously we haven't covered you at all yet or anything you've done, but it is an honor and I'm gonna out you, James, as one of our Full Stop supporters.
- [04:31]
A
I am, I am. I was the real one. Yeah. No, I was like, so I just love what you guys did so much. I was like, I'm going to support. I'm going to support. That's it. That's it. I'm doing it. And a fit of economic. Economic flourish, I decided to become a full Stop supporter.
- [04:48]
B
Well, you're the best. We. We really appreciate it, but we are very excited to talk about California Scheman. We got to watch it. We both really loved it. We immediately texted each other afterwards and were like, it's so good.
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A
Oh, thank you. Awkward, right? If you don't like it. And I'm, like, coming on the show.
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C
Well, the first thing we texted was, thank God. It's good because it Would have been like, so the lighting is great, let's talk about that.
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A
No, dude. We got a distributor that I had worked with in the past on a movie like 10 years ago who really wanted to do California Scheming, like a year before we started shooting, wanted to put in money up front and be the UK distributor. Real good. Like, got the story, was well into it. Anyway, we didn't end up going with them because we got. We got more. We got offered a bigger fee from Studio Canal uk, who've been incredible and great collaborators. 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 people in the industry and kind of 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 Styler was there. Oh, my God. 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 sit down and have a cup of tea. And we go, what do you think? He's like, yeah, yeah, there's. There's a film in there. There's a film in there. Oh, and you're like,
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C
with two days left in the edit. Oh, man.
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A
Yeah, I know, I know. And you're like. You're kind of going, I think there's personal stuff here. Maybe it's that. And luckily, we tested the film up to the wazoo and we were scoring really high. And we knew audiences laughed at all the right points, cried at all the right points. So we were like, we knew it worked, but I was like, ooh, it was exactly what you're saying. So the lighting.
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B
Wow. Well, before we get too deep into it, can you give listeners just the logline of what California Scheman is about?
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A
Oh, yeah, Because I guess we don't have an IMDb logline yet, do we?
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B
Let me see, because I have your page up here.
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A
You do.
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B
You do have an IMDb log line.
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C
Okay, we're gonna do it.
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A
Let's do the thing you go do the IMDb log line. Okay, I'm sorry.
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B
As always, as always, here's the IMDb logline. Two Scottish lads from Dundee conned the music industry by pretending to be an established Californian rap duo, bagging a record deal and appearing on MTV until their scam unraveled.
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A
Yeah, yeah, pretty good. So basically, you've got two extremely talented Scottish rappers, right? And that just makes people laugh outside of Scotland. I'm not saying that still happens. I'm not saying it would happen today, but I don't see many Scottish rappers kicking it in the charts at the moment. And they went down to London, they did a big, huge open edition for a major record label who shall remain nameless. And they got laughed out of the room. They asked, like, what do you want? They were, like, basically listed off a bunch of American rappers. And they went, cool, we'll do that. And 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 D12, knowing Eminem and all that, who they then later had to support live on stage. And they styled it out, really. It sounds like a kind of great success story about two people trying to game the system. It's also a story about integrity and authenticity, the lifeblood of hip hop music as well, I might add, as well as just something that we all need to walk through our lives with. And they paid a price. And I think to get where you want to get in life, 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, yeah, that's ultimately the story.
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C
Well, it's set up so effectively the way that you guys have crafted it. So they arc from, like, Scottish pride to internalizing the, you know, sort of shame that seems to be projected on them from the industry at the end. And they. And I loved the way that the two characters, Gavin and Billy, kind of orbit around one another by the end of the film, and they reverse positions in a lot of ways. And we talk a lot on the show about this idea that your flaws are your style. The thing that other people perceive will hold you back will actually be the thing when you do succeed that makes you distinct from everybody else. And what you're talking about with what they sacrifice. I love how by the end, it's pointed out by Tessa, their manager, that they've given up the one thing that actually would have set them apart, that 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. And it is so tragic.
- [10:14]
B
I have to say that was one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. And I really loved Rebecca Merle, who plays Tessa. So good. And I was just so struck by that moment. Especially to have that character be a woman and to be a woman of color I thought was really brilliant. Because something this movie does so well is it shows the collateral damage of them making this decision to essentially fake it. And she is kind of that collateral damage. And it hit me so hard when she's like, you did one audition, you did one audition and you thought that they should pick you based on one audition. And it's just, I know 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 45 minutes. So first of all, thank you for that.
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A
Listen, man, my whole purpose for making a film was basically to try and increase the quota of 90 minute movies that get made. And that was my initial thing. I wanted it to be 90 minutes. My director's cut, my first pass after whatever many weeks, six weeks or something like that was 89 minutes. And I was like, nailed it, right? And my editor and I, Joe, were like, nailed it, right? And then we showed it to like 12 people and they were all like, it's too fast, it's too fast. We'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 yeah, it ended up being an hour and 45. 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 or. I wanted to make A movie. And for that I had to have momentum and it had to be not too long. So, yeah, we did a lot of work in developing the script.
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C
It has great momentum.
- [12:21]
B
Yes, it does.
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C
And it's a great point that we talk about, which is sometimes you cut it so short that actually feels longer, you know, like you need a pace that people can understand and sit in and enjoy. And you very clearly established that with this movie. It just hums along. Kudos to your editor.
- [12:37]
A
It's part of my problem as a director, as a first time director, is I finally got to do what I like as an actor, which is pick up your cues, if you know what I mean by that. Like not too much Pausy acting, not too much breathing in between the lines. Really, really make it snappy. 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, the 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, the thing that you both create together. And sometimes you get in the way of the momentum, line to line, beat to be 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 dp, James Rhodes, who did an amazing job, great background in, in live musical performance photography, which makes sense for this movie. Yeah, right. He has not thanked me a couple of times for some of the shots that I put because he's like, you took that take, it was like, that's the one. This was the longest. Like literally just trying to stretch the film at times because it was playing so fast, it felt slow. Like you say, Chris, can you walk
- [14:10]
B
us through, like, how you found this project and how you knew that this was the one that you wanted to make your directorial debut with?
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A
I wasn't necessarily certain that I needed to make a Scottish film as my first. I was pretty sure I wanted to make an entertaining movie about people from lower, lower income backgrounds, whatever that was in the world. And When I said I wanted to be a director, I was in the very fortunate position as an actor of, you know, some success over the last 30 years that when I said I wanted to be a director, I got offered scripts. And that's a really privileged position to be. And 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 working class Scottish council estates. 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. I was in the Teenage.
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C
A movie.
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A
I grew up in the teen. I know, I know. A movie. I grew up in the teenage pregnancy capital of Europe. So. And. And then I get these scripts that are about, you know, abuse, domestic drug, 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 chance to entertain as well as being about the social realities of what it's like to be from somewhere like that without ignoring it. It 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 gu.
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B
You know, I mean, if anything, it's so illustrative of, I think, what some of those other movies were maybe trying to convey without being a bummer necessarily, because the fact that all they had to change to get the record contract was their accent should really tell you everything you need to know about, you know, the way that that culture. I mean, obviously we're American, but I'm assuming the way that that culture was sort of viewed by other parts of the uk, at least.
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A
I mean, I would say it might. I'm not here to complain because I don't think it's. It helps. And instead I made a movie that was. That makes people laugh and hopefully shows light on what is actually happening. The reason I put the big mural of Trainspotting in the movie.
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B
Yes.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Not just because of the kind of iconic line the. That Renton says, and that when he says it's shape in Scottish. It was to make people remember that it's 30 years since that film was made and potentially the best Scottish film ever made. Right. I think it's an incredible work of art and entertaining. And it's a movie. It's not just a film, it's a movie. And what have we had since then? And it's a country of 6 million people. I know we're not like 250 like you guys, but like 6 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 13 years ago. Just other stuff in between then. I'm not just saying that 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 same story the world over. Certain regions in certain echelons of society are allowed to have stories told about. And the rest kind of maybe because 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 our experience reflected and we can see ourselves. And so all parts of society need to be reflected, and that's all colors, all genders, all creeds, all sexualities, all. Everybody. And it's just really sad that you walk into your 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. That just illustrates it right there, you know? So not try to complain about it because I don't think it helps the situation. But, yeah.
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B
I have to ask you about that Ewan McGregor mural. I had several questions about it. First of all, it was a strong.
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A
It was a bold choice.
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B
I love it. As soon as I saw it, I was locked into this movie. Does he know? Has he seen the movie? Does he know that it's in it?
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A
I don't think he's seen the film. He was on the Graham Norton show, and Graham said, like, oh, you've popped up in Glasgow. Do you know this mural? And he looks at the mural on the Graham Norton show and goes like, oh, wow, that's amazing. I don't think anybody realized that we had put it there.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it was. I was looking for something that illustrated something culturally significant about Scotland that everybody can recognize and then that we could later reveal Had a negative connotation. When the bus moves away.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And 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 like, it's potentially quite a treacherous move here. Self sabotage.
- [19:42]
C
That's why I removed the Casablanca references from the first movie I did right at the beginning. But, yeah, we got it as. So the casting, like, it's been said anywhere from what, I don't know, 75% to 90% of casting, depending on who you ask. 90% 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 God.
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B
They look so much like them too. When you show the real footage at the end, I was like, oh, my God.
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C
I didn't realize I had seen Samuel Bottomley before.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And way back in tyrannosaur from, like, 2011, which I forgot about.
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A
But that's a great film.
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C
It's an amazing movie. You guys should go see it.
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B
He is so good. I really was blown away.
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C
Can you tell us a little bit about the search? Like, how did you feel when you found. I mean, I can't imagine these are real people that you're basing this on. As we mentioned, you show footage at the end of the film. They look like them. They are great performers. I love their accent. Like, the American accent is crazy. So good.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So how did you find. What was that process like?
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A
It was an interesting process. It was quite long. We started casting quite early because I've said this quite a few times. If we were making this film a bit to kids in Albuquerque or something like that, doing something similar, I'd have a plethora of young actors who'd led movies and probably could finance a movie at a certain level anyway, because my country doesn't produce movies, I'm looking for complete unknowns, people who have done hardly any work at that age group. Seamus, he hadn't done a professional gig, but when I hired him, he had done one after. By the time we made the movie, he'd done one gig. Lucy had done one gig. Sam had been working since he was like, five years old. We started early. We saw a lot of people, saw a ton of people, and we did a lot of chemistry. Cast and 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 their relationship will make it or not. So chemistry was more important than individual actor being great. I got lucky in the first person I ever auditioned in my life as a director was Samuel Bottomley.
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C
Wow.
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A
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 because, well, Gavin's role is more troubled, and 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 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 you can't, 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 got to be that. And. And Sam's just like, chill as fuck and so cool and capable of being authentically himself. And so he was the first person I saw and I thought, if I can get him in the film with Seamus and their chemistry works, we're going to be great. But we didn't know that that was going to 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 are really good, just not like, necessarily right. And then I put them both together and they kind of canceled each other out. And they were both really shit for the first. For the first take. And I was like, oh, this is 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 because they both like, game recognized game or something like that, you know. And then I was like, okay, what did I do? And I went. I guess what we do is we 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.
- [24:09]
C
No, I don't.
- [24:10]
A
So we went again and. Yeah, no, I know. It was perfect. Let's go again. And they just got out of their own way. They stopped looking at each other. They stopped admiring each other, and they just played. And they were brilliant. They were so, so good. But the weird thing is that, like, it's the same as true with Lucy as well. Lucy, who plays Mary, she's the first tape I saw for anyone. She just happened to be the first in line of all the tapes that I saw. And we saw her twice in person as well. But I was like, it's her. It's going to be.
- [24:42]
B
Yeah, she's really lovely.
- [24:44]
A
Now, I don't know if that's just, like, bias, because it's the first person I saw, but she is exceptional. She's really good. And she's a. She's brilliant in Testaments as well. So. Yeah. And then, actually, I say Billy was the hardest part to cast. Tessa was the hardest part to cast, actually, because Tessa was the only role that we invented. Tessa was originally a sort of antagonist. She was one of the managers from the label who was, like, onto them and trying to figure them out. She took against their kind of juvenile chauvinism and juvenile sort of misogynistic kind of humor, at times, quite rightly so, and sniffed a rat. And she kind of went after them, and she was exposing them and looking for their passports and all that. I was like, it doesn't. 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. So I was like, great. I've nailed it. I've written a great part, and it's really responsible. Cause I'm like, we've got a movie about two white guys that are appropriating black music. And here I have somebody from the black community who's a supporter and lover of that culture, who's also getting fucked over. That makes sense. Great. We've written a really good part. And then nobody could. Every actor we saw was just like, nobody gets this. What is going on? To the point where I was talking to the writer, Elaine Gracie, who's amazing and going, have we written a shit part? 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, but ultimately ended up going for pretty much the first instinct. And I don't know if that's a lesson for the future or not.
- [26:36]
C
Maybe you learn to trust yourself. Right. Because it's your first time, so you're thinking, like, no way. I nailed it on the first tape. And then now going forward, you can just say, yeah, we nailed it on the first tape.
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A
Tell you what, though, I don't know how you feel, but, like, sometimes I've definitely felt this. As an actor auditioning for directors, I'm being used to help you figure out whether this is a good scene or not. Yeah.
- [26:56]
C
I'm like, well, this scene doesn't work.
- [26:57]
A
Yeah, totally. Like, we workshopped a lot of the script. Yeah.
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C
Turns out that line is unsayable outside of my head, so I'm gonna cut it from my stupid movie. Yeah. No, it's important. It is. Like, as a director, I think one of the most important things you can do is look to your cast and say, like, they're smart. They're very good at what they do. Have I given them an impossible task?
- [27:16]
A
Basically, yeah.
- [27:17]
C
And on that, really quickly, 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 or, I really don't want to do what this director did. Please name names. No, I'm just kidding.
- [27:34]
A
I will, I will, I will. I've absolutely ripped off John Baird and Danny Boyle with the kind of sort of unfeasible enthusiasm and energy projection, even when you don't feel it. And, you know, they don't feel it all the time. But the commit, even when the crew and the cast are looking, you go like, I know you're not feeling this right now. You really appreciate the commitment and the effort, you know, And I love that about them. I also. I think they've done incredible work. Just that I would be lucky to emulate as well. But I've not tried to emulate their style or anything like that. 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.
- [28:17]
C
I think we do.
- [28:18]
A
Joe Wright did something that no director I've ever worked with before or since has Ever done. And I did this every day on every scene because it really galvanized for me, the crew, and welcomed in the crew in a way that they don't always get, which was rehearsed it with the actors. And then you welcome the crew and for the crew show and you let them see it. And then you go, all right, this is what the scene is to me. The scene is to me, connection. It's funny, at this bit, they have a moment of something 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 going to do this, this, this, this. And if we get time, we'll do this right. That's what we're all doing, guys. Ready, Break. And it's like everybody just suddenly goes. I feel like a filmmaker today because there's so much like chain of command sometimes on a film set that stops 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 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 hods have or something like that. But, yeah, so that was something that I've chosen to do 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, you know that. Yeah. 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 terrible. I think he's probably slightly too old to be called that anymore. Terrible infant in French. For anybody who doesn't speak French. I don't, but I know that. I mean, and I've been working with him for about 17 years, and he's probably the most significant director actor relationship I've ever had. Watching him change as a director 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 me, all the cast, 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're 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 limp or the right funny walk and the patch and whatever the face like. I'm here for the audience are here for the performer telling them the story, because that's what we are. We're not actors. We're not. This. This is my thing, and forgive me if anybody disagrees with me. You're totally allowed to and do your own thing and it's cool. But we're not filmmakers. We're not DPs, we're not boom operators, we're not actors, we're not hair and makeup department. We're not any of these things. We are all storytellers. And sometimes the craft becomes the end goal. Sometimes cinema becomes the end goal. I'm here to make good cinema. And you're like, 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 cast 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 be. Fire out through that on stage with him. I tried to do that with my cast as well. And for a young cast, two of which were massively inexperienced, I think that really helped. So, yeah, I would name check everybody I'd stolen from.
- [32:14]
C
Good. Before we let you go, the last thing we have to ask you, of course, is what went wrong. If there was one thing you could
- [32:21]
B
share that I know, I'm sure not just one thing.
- [32:24]
C
Whatever you want to share. I know we're at it. We're close on time, but please, what went wrong?
- [32:28]
A
Man. So, oh, man. We had some pretty major, major, major stuff go wrong very early on. And I actually can't talk about it because it might be litigious and all this. So it's really.
- [32:45]
C
We'll save that for later.
- [32:46]
A
Years from now, I will come back and tell you all about it. It is pretty wild. It is pretty wild. And the fact that. That we have this movie, the Wild west, the dodge city of making independent cinema in Great Britain, in Scotland, where roughly five films get made every 50 years. Is incredible that this film exists. What went wrong? There was one tiny scene in the film where it said, Seamus's character, Gavin, skateboards and like stacks it and hurt himself. Right. We've got that scene in the film.
- [33:21]
B
Yeah.
- [33:21]
A
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 was like, seamus, do you think you can get skateboarding and take some lessons and stuff and I will pay for it and all that? He gets to set, he gets the unit bay or like the production office three weeks before we start shooting. I'm like, so how's those skateboarding lessons been going? He's like, oh, no, I've not been doing them and all right. So I, like, got them in there, got them in the skate community and I got them going. Right. But I only needed Seamus doing it. Samuel Bottom. He 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. The Bond, the insurance company, like, they're not gonna like this. No. He'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. And a week and a half before the movie gets started, before we ro. 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 the moment that he broke his elbow. And we were like, oh, gosh, that happened. So the only time you see Sam 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. And that was the last little bit that he was able to skateboard.
- [34:52]
B
You shot at the Barrowlands, right?
- [34:54]
A
Yeah. I mean, where the boys actually supported Eminem and D12 was the Brixton Academy in London. So we were running around Glasgow looking for a place that could double as the Brixton Academy. And then ultimately we got to the Barrowlands, which cannot double as the Brixton Academy because it's so unique and so strange looking. It's got this big curved ceiling and we were just like, this is somewhere that D12 also played. And we're like, well, why don't we have them just come here instead? And we were able to fill it with 2,000 people.
- [35:21]
C
Wow.
- [35:22]
A
Which is amazing. We couldn't pay them to come because that was going to cost us like, 350, 400 grand, which we just didn't have. So we managed to put on a real gig with a real band. And we got them to come in Naughty's sort of hip hop, skater boy outfits. And we said, come for the real gig. 90 minutes of naughty's bangers and stay for like, two takes of our boys. They stayed. The Glasgow crowd, all 2,000 of them, stayed for, like, two hours and let me direct them. And, like, they were amazing. They were amazing.
- [35:56]
B
Are you kidding? I bet they were thrilled.
- [35:59]
A
Oh, it was amazing. It was like such a buzz. The. There's a thing in Glasgow where a gig, if they like you, they will chant. Here, wait, here we. Here we fucking go. Here, wait. Here we. Here we fucking go. Chapel Roan famously had one where they. They adapted it for Chapel. Chapel. Chapel fucking run. And when they did that for us, unprompted, I was like, it's not accurate. It wouldn't be back then. It's only started in the last 10, 15 years. But I was like, that's got to go in the film. That's such a slice of where I'm from. It's got to 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'm weirdly not a fan of musicals or biopics. And I just made a musical biopic for my directorial debut. And it wasn't until eight weeks out in prep that I was like, I've got to make a music film. How am I going to do this? And James Rhodes was exceptional at helping me conceptualize 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 them money together for a soundtrack was. Was ridiculous. We had an amazing composer, Ben Rafferty, who did the Substance.
- [37:18]
C
I may destroy you. I think he did that.
- [37:20]
A
I may destroy you. He did Dragonfly, which is an amazing film. I don't know if you've seen it with Brenda Blethen just recently and Andrea Riseborough. Terrifying domestic care film you could check out. It's an amazing hybrid film. I've just made a film with the director called Faith, with Aaron Doherty. Anyway, he's a very talented guy, but that guy, Ben Rafferty put our soundtrack together in four weeks.
- [37:40]
C
Wow.
- [37:42]
A
I know. That's how. That's how slim the budget was.
- [37:45]
C
Like, that's a classic. What went wrong? The composer has no time. That's like the perfect. You did it. You followed every tenant of the show.
- [37:52]
A
He was amazing. He was amazing. Like a real gentleman genius. And just like, what the kind of person that the movie industry thrives on and also takes advantage of.
- [38:04]
C
Right.
- [38:05]
A
But it's like.
- [38:06]
C
Because you give him an impossible task and then he actually does it. Yeah.
- [38:08]
A
The idea that the show must go on is wonderful. I live for that. But I'm also abused because I live for that. Do you know what I mean? And we all do. Yeah. The show doesn't always have to go on, but this is why I could never.
- [38:22]
B
I could never be a stars because I'm always like, the show can stop. It can stop right here.
- [38:28]
A
Yeah. Like, literally 99% of your crew and cast are. Show must go on people.
- [38:36]
C
I know we have to let you go, but is there anything else that we haven't talked about or that you'd like to mention or plug. Before you get out of here, I
- [38:42]
A
just want to give a shout out to Michael Mendelssohn at Patriot Pictures, who, when we encountered some serious issues, came in and saved the day. We've had lots of great partners financially, but without him at that exact moment, we would have gone under, like, a lot of British independent films just one day, two weeks into the shoot do. And so we're really lucky that we got this made.
- [39:05]
B
Thank you so much.
- [39:06]
A
Listen, as a fan of the podcast, thank you so much for having me on.
- [39:10]
C
Thank you.
- [39:10]
A
It is weird talking to you live.
- [39:13]
B
It's weird talking to you too.
- [39:15]
C
Yeah. It's a two way street there. Mr. McAvoy, thank you so much for your time. Seriously, just fucking congratulations.
- [39:24]
B
Yes. It's so good.
- [39:25]
C
A fucking great movie. I can't see what. I'm sorry, I can't stop swearing, but I can't wait to see what you do next. It's so good. What an accomplishment.
- [39:31]
A
Just, seriously, thanks, you guys.
- [39:33]
B
Congratulations. And thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. We appreciate you, your art, your actual financial support of our show. You're the absolute best. You're a king.
- [39:43]
A
Yeah. Don't forget, guys, I paid for this.
- [39:45]
C
I know.
- [39:45]
A
So thank you for making it a satisfying experience.
- [39:48]
C
And we'll be buying tickets to your movie. And the Ouroboros continues. We love you so much. Thank you so much. James we appreciate you.
- [39:54]
A
Thank you guys.
- [40:09]
B
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- [40:30]
A
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- [41:21]
C
Hey, everyone. Check out this guy in his is bird. What is this, your first date?
- [41:24]
A
Oh, no.
- [41:25]
C
We help people customize and save on
- [41:27]
A
car insurance with Liberty Mutual Together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [41:36]
C
Liberty. Liberty.
- [41:37]
A
Liberty.
- [41:38]
C
Liberty.