James McAvoy on California Schemin'

This week, the one and only James McAvoy joins Chris and Lizzie to break down what went wrong - and very right - on his directorial debut, California Schemin’. The film follows two young Scottish rappers who get laughed out of the music industry… until they start pretending to be American. It’s a true story of ambition, delusion, and the blurry line between reinvention and outright fraud. Find out what drew McAvoy to the script, how he assembled the perfect cast, and what surprised him most about stepping behind the camera for the first time. Plus, discover the tricks he borrowed from some of the best directors he’s worked with (and which ones actually worked). Check out California Schemin’ in UK theaters starting today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Winterbauer?

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• 0:31Lizzie Bassett?

  12 celebrities, one Don, and cold, hard cash. From the producers of The Traitors comes The Mob, a new Hulu original series now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. In this unique new reality competition show hosted by the iconic Parker Posey, 12 celebrity contestants are about to become members of a powerful family. For two weeks in a lavish Italian villa, they'll shake down and hustle to win a share of up to $250,000. And every good mob needs a Don. Whoever they choose to lead them will have absolute power deciding who stays and who gets taken out, who makes money, and who walks away with nothing. In a game of power where loyalty and trust are the currency,

• 1:15Lizzie Bassett?

  will the most powerful reality contestant in TV history be able to keep the family happy? And if they're overthrown by the mob, who will step up and become the new Don? Let the games begin. Watch The Mob, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Guys, this is, eh, this is kinda weird. I listen to you guys a lot.

• 1:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Stop!

• 1:41Chris Winterbauer?

  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 Karen Knightley and she fell in love with you. Um, 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 talking to you right now.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  My natural curiosity just means I wanna see the picture.

• 2:08Chris Winterbauer?

  It's like a full shot of you in your like Dunkirk army gear. Maybe she still has it, I don't know.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 2:15Chris Winterbauer?

  We don't stay in touch. Uh, but anyway, uh, Lizzie, please speak.

• 2:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Uh, sure, gladly. Hi, welcome.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:33Chris Winterbauer?

  And action. Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to a special bonus episode of

• 2:41Speaker 02

  This is crazy.

• 2:42Chris Winterbauer?

  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

• 2:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, because that's the most important

• 2:59Chris Winterbauer?

  That's

• 2:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Fire.

• 3:01Chris Winterbauer?

  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 Schemin, 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 in a 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.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  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. And 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 to you guys, and I 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.

• 4:16Chris Winterbauer?

  That's

• 4:16Lizzie Bassett?

  We appreciate it. I I'm thrilled to hear that. I'm also terrified, because 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.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  I am, I am. I was

• 4:36Lizzie Bassett?

  It's the real one.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I was like, I so I just love what you guys did so much. It 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.

• 4:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, you're the best. We Really appreciate it, but we are very excited to talk about California Schemin. We got to watch it. We both really loved it. We immediately texted each other afterwards and we're like, it's so good.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you. Awkward, right? If you don't like it and I'm like coming on the show.

• 5:08Chris Winterbauer?

  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.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  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 Schemin. Like a year before we started shooting, wanted to put in money upfront 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 have been incredible and great collaborators.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 6:21Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my God.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  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. We have to sit down and have a cup of tea and go, what do you think? He's like, yeah, yeah, there's, there's a film in there. There's a film in there. And you're like. Oh.

• 6:49Chris Winterbauer?

  With two days left in the edit. Oh, man.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 6:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my god.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  You're kind of going, I think there's personal stuff here.

• 6:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Maybe it's that. And luckily, we tested the film up to the wazoo and we were scoring really high. We knew audiences laughed at all the right points, cried at all the right points and so we were like, we knew it worked. But I was like, ooh, it was exactly what you're saying. So the lighting.

• 7:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow. Well, before we get too deep into it, can you give listeners just the log line of what California Schemin is about?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, because I guess we don't have an IMDb log line yet, do we?

• 7:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Let me see, because I have your page up here. You do. You do have an IMDb log line.

• 7:29Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay, we're gonna do it.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Do the thing. You've got to do the IMDb log line.

• 7:31Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, I'm sorry.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  As always.

• 7:33Lizzie Bassett?

  As always. Here's the IMDb log line. 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. Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  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? And 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.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  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.

• 8:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Live on stage. And they styled it out. Really, it sounds like a kind of great success story about two people trying to trying to game the system. It's 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 and they paid a price. And I think, you know, to get where you want to get in life, you can sacrifice whatever you want. But you're going to 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, they didn't. And they pay a pretty hefty price because of it. But yeah, that's ultimately the story.

• 9:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, it's set up so effectively, the way that you guys have crafted it. So the 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 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, 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, that they

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:03Chris Winterbauer?

  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.

• 10:17Lizzie Bassett?

  I have to say, that was one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. And I really loved Rebecca Merle, who plays Tessa.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  She's great.

• 10:25Lizzie Bassett?

  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, you know, making this decision to essentially fake it. And and she is kind of that collateral damage. And 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, it 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,

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 11:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Thank you for that.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Listen, man, my whole purpose for making a film was basically to try and increase the quota of ninety minute movies that get made. And that was my initial thing. I wanted it to be ninety minutes. My, my director's cut, my first pass, whatever many weeks, six weeks or something like that, was eighty nine minutes. And I was like, nailed it, right? And my editor and I, Joe, were like, nailed it, right? And, and then we showed it to like twelve people and they were all like, oh, it's too fast, it's too fast. We were 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 M O S. And yeah, it ended up being an hour and forty five. But yeah, I wanted to make it tight and have momentum.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  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.

• 12:23Chris Winterbauer?

  It has great momentum.

• 12:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, it does.

• 12:25Chris Winterbauer?

  And it's a great point that, you know, 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 comes along. Kudos to your editor.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Well, it was, 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 pausing 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 to edit and the sound is protected, you lose energy between the actors, which is ultimately what you're trying to capture. You're trying 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 beat, and you mess up. Anyway, I was

• 13:23Speaker 02

  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 was 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, did an amazing job. Great background in um in live musical performance photography.

• 13:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Which makes sense for this movie.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. He has not thanked me a couple of times for some of the shots that I've taken. Because he's like, you took that take? It was like, that's the one that's 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.

• 14:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Can you walk 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?

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Um, I 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 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 estates. And I was like, I definitely want to make them about people in that position.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:27Lizzie Bassett?

  A movie?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  I grew up in the teen, I know, I know, a movie. I grew up in the teenage pregnancy capsule of Europe. So and um 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 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 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?

• 16:05Lizzie Bassett?

  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.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  I mean, I would say it might, I'm not here to complain because I don't think it's, it helps. Um, and instead I made a movie, um, that was, that makes people laugh and hopefully um, shows light on what is actually happening. The reason I put the big mural of um, Trainspotting in the movie.

• 16:50Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 16:51Chris Winterbauer?

  We were gonna ask about that.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Is because, yeah, not just because of the kind of iconic line that that Renton says in that, when he says it's shite being Scottish. It was to make people remember that like it's thirty 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 fucking movie. 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, but thirteen years ago.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  There's been 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 all the world over, certain regions and certain echelons of society are allowed to have stories told about them. And the rest kinda, 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 an experience reflected and we can see ourselves. And so

• 18:15Speaker 02

  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, 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.

• 18:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  That just illustrates it right there, you know. So not try to complain about it because I don't think it's, it's, it helps the situation, but um, but yeah.

• 18:46Lizzie Bassett?

  I have to ask you about that Ewan McGregor mural. I have, I had, I had several questions about it. First of all.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  It was a strong, it was a bold choice.

• 18:54Lizzie Bassett?

  It's, I love it. As soon as I saw it, I was locked into this movie. Does, does he know, has he seen the movie? Does he know that it's in it?

• 19:01Speaker 02

  He, I don't think he's seen the film. He was on the Graham Norton Show and Graham said like, oh, you've, 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.

• 19:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  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 was a, had a negative connotation when the bus moves away.

• 19:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 19:40Chris Winterbauer?

  It is.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Potentially quite a treacherous move here, self sabotage.

• 19:46Chris Winterbauer?

  That's why I removed the Casablanca references from the first movie I did, right at the beginning. But yeah. Uh, we gotta ask, so the casting, like, it's been said anywhere from what, I don't know, seventy five percent to ninety percent of casting, depending on who you ask, 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.

• 20:08Lizzie Bassett?

  God, they look so much like them too. And when you show the real footage at the end, I was like, oh, my God.

• 20:13Chris Winterbauer?

  I didn't realize I had seen Samuel Bottomley before.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:19Chris Winterbauer?

  And way back in Tyrannosaur from like 2011, which I forgot about, but.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  That's a great film.

• 20:24Chris Winterbauer?

  It's an amazing movie. You guys should go see it.

• 20:26Lizzie Bassett?

  He is so good. I really was blown away.

• 20:29Chris Winterbauer?

  Can you tell us a little bit about the search? Like, how did you feel when you found? I mean, I can't imagine, like, 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. They, I love their accent, like the American accent they do.

• 20:43Lizzie Bassett?

  The code switching is crazy.

• 20:45Chris Winterbauer?

  It's so good.

• 20:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Chris Winterbauer?

  So how did you find it? What was that process like?

• 20:48Speaker 02

  It was, it was an interesting process. It was quite long. We, we started casting quite early because, you know, I've said this quite a few times, if we were making this film about two kids in Albuquerque or something like that, um, 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. Cause my country doesn't produce movies. I'm, I'm looking for complete unknowns, people who have done hardly any work at that age group, you know? Seamus, this was his, 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.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  And 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. Cause 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, it doesn't really matter. It's whether their 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.

• 22:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  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. Mm hmm. Role 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.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  And um you can't, you can't, you can't action that, you can't check off that, you can't unit beats and eject that. You can't learn that, you can't technique that, you can't act that, you've 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, uh, it, he was the first person I saw. And I thought, if, 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.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  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 kind of 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 because they both like game recognize game or something like that, you know? And then I was like, okay, what do I do? And I went, I guess what we do is we go again. Yeah, that's what we do. We'll go again. You know, the classic, the brilliant idea, director intervenes, we'll go again.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  And so we went again. And yeah, no, I know. It was perfect. Let's go again. And 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 gonna be her.

• 24:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, she's really lovely.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  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 the Testaments as well. And so, yeah, and then the, actually, I said 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 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. And 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, the threat and the drama of are they gonna get caught or not? I'm just not interested in.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  It's just a 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.

• 25:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  And so I was like, great, I've nailed it. I've, I've written a great part. And it's really responsible because I'm like, we've got a movie about two white guys that are appropriating um black music. And and here I have somebody from the black community who's a like a supporter of 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 like 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.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  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 ended up going for pretty much the first instinct. And I don't know if that's a lesson for the future or not.

• 26:40Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, maybe you learn to trust yourself, right? Because it's your first time. So you're thinking like, uh, 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.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  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.

• 26:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I'm like, well, this scene doesn't work.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. Like, we workshopped a lot of the scripts.

• 27:03Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, turns out that line is unsayable, uh, 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, basically?

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:21Chris Winterbauer?

  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. 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.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I will, I will, I will. Um, I've absolutely ripped off, uh, 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 they commit, even when the crew and the cast are looking, you're going 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. Um, 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 a toment with, that we talked about before we started recording, Chris, which is an interesting conversation that we might have to include.

• 28:20Chris Winterbauer?

  I think we do.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  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, uh, cause it really galvanized for me, the crew and and welcomed in the crew in a way that they don't always get, which was rehearse 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, uh, connection, it's, um, it's, 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.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  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 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, 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 Ds have or something like that.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  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 and all that, yeah. And, 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. Um, uh, terrible infant in French for anybody who doesn't speak French. I don't, but I know what 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.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Like he's doing less and less and less over the years, not just for me, cause he's worked with me loads and I've become more experienced, but with all the cast. He's doing less in terms of acute minute direction, but he's doing so much and 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 characterization has the right limp or the right funny walk and the patch and the whatever the face 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.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  And forgive me if anybody disagrees with me. You're totally allowed to 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 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.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  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 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 will name check everybody I've stolen from.

• 32:17Chris Winterbauer?

  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 share? No, not just one thing. Share as much as you want. I know we're at it, we're close on time, but please, what went wrong?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Man, so I can't, oh man, we had some pretty major, major, major stuff go wrong very early on. And um, I actually can't talk about it because it might be litigious and all that stuff. So it's, it's really, one day, 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 we have this movie, the Wild West, the, the, the Dodge City of making. Independent cinema in Great Britain, in Scotland, where roughly five films get made every fifty years. Is um is incredible that this film exists.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  And what went wrong? And 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.

• 33:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  And I was like, do you know what? Like, he's a hip hop guy, he's a skater guy, he's skater culture. He should be skateboarding. So I was like, Seamus, do 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 the uni or like the production office. Three weeks before we start shooting, I'm like, so how have those skateboarding lessons been going? 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 skate community and I got them going, right? And 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.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  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 skateboarding, so 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 roll. Uh Sam breaks his elbow.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  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.

• 34:55Lizzie Bassett?

  You did. You shot at the Barrowlands, right?

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, where the boys actually supported Eminem and D twelve was the Brixton Academy in London. So we were running around Glasgow looking for a place that could double as a Brixton Academy. And then ultimately, we got to the Battlelands, 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'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?

• 35:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Um, and we were able to fill it with two thousand people.

• 35:25Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Which is amazing. We couldn't pay them to come, because that was going to cost us like three hundred and fifty, four hundred grand, which we just didn't have. So we managed to put on a real gig.

• 35:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  With a real band. And we got them to come in naughty's sort of hip hop skater boy outfits. And um, we said, come for the real gig, ninety minutes of naughty's bangers. And stay for like two takes of our boys. 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.

• 36:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Are you kidding? I bet they were thrilled.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Oh, it was amazing. It was like such a buzz. The um, there's a thing in Glasgow where a gig, if they like you, they will chant, here we, here we, here we fucking go. Here we, here we, here we fucking go. Chapel Ron famously had one where they they adapted it for Chapel, Chapel, Chapel fucking Ron.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  And um, when they did that for us unprompted, I was like, ah, it's not accurate. It wouldn't be back then. It's only started in the last like ten, fifteen years. But I was like, that's got to go in the film. It'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, I, I'm not, 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. It was like, how am I going to do this? And um. James Rhodes was exceptional at helping me conceptualize how we go from what looked

• 37:05Speaker 02

  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 ridiculous. We had an amazing composer, Ben Rafferty, who did The Substance.

• 37:21Chris Winterbauer?

  I May Destroy You, I think he did that.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  I May Destroy You, he did Dragonfly, which is an amazing film. I don't know if you've seen it with Brenda Blethyn just recently. And Andrea Riseborough, terrifying domestic care film. You've got to check it out. It's an amazing hybrid film. I've just made a film with the director called Faith with Erin Doherty. Anyway, he's a very talented guy. But that guy, Ben Rafferty, put our soundtrack together in four weeks.

• 37:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  I know. That's how, that's how slim the budget was.

• 37:48Chris Winterbauer?

  That's a classic, What Went Wrong? The composer has no time. That's the perfect, you did it. You followed every tenet of the show.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  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.

• 38:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Right.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Where it's like.

• 38:09Chris Winterbauer?

  Because you give him an impossible task and then he actually does it.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. 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. If the show doesn't always have to go on, but.

• 38:24Lizzie Bassett?

  This is why I could never, I could never be a star because I'm always like, the show, the show can stop. It can stop right here.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, literally 99% of your crew and cast are show must go on people.

• 38:39Chris Winterbauer?

  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?

• 38:45Speaker 02

  I just want to give a shout out to Michael Mendelson 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.

• 39:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Thank you so much.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Listen, as a, as a fan of the podcast, thank you so much for having me on. It is weird talking to you live.

• 39:17Lizzie Bassett?

  It's weird talking to you two.

• 39:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, it's a two way street there, Mr. McAvoy. Thank you so much for your time. Seriously, like, just fucking congratulations.

• 39:27Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 39:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Fucking great movie. I can't see what, like, 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. Just seriously.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Thanks, you guys.

• 39:36Lizzie Bassett?

  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.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Don't forget, guys, I paid for this.

• 39:48Chris Winterbauer?

  I know.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  So thank you for making it a satisfying experience.

• 39:51Chris Winterbauer?

  We will and will be buying tickets to your movie.

• 39:53Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right.

• 39:53Chris Winterbauer?

  And the aura of ours continues.

• 39:54Lizzie Bassett?

  We love you so much.

• 39:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you so much, James. We appreciate you.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys.

• 40:12Speaker 03

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