ENCORE: James McAvoy on California Schemin'

This week, we revisit our interview with the one and only James McAvoy as Chris and Lizzie 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 theaters on October 9th! 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?

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• 1:15Lizzie Bassett?

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• 1:36Speaker 02

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

• 1:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Stop.

• 1:43Chris 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.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  My natural curiosity just means I wanna see the picture.

• 2:09Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 2:16Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 2:16Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 2:22Lizzie Bassett?

  Uh, sure, gladly. Hi, welcome.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:37Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 2:42Speaker 02

  It's just crazy.

• 2:43Chris 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

• 2:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, cuz that's the most important qualifier.

• 3:02Chris Winterbauer?

  It's the most important decision our guest has ever made. Um, 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, 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.

• 3:40Speaker 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 gonna call it a podcast. Um, 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.

• 4:17Chris Winterbauer?

  No, we appreciate it.

• 4:18Lizzie Bassett?

  I, I'm thrilled to hear that. I'm also terrified. Cuz I, 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.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  I am, I am. I was compelled. Yeah, no, I was like, I, 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, an economic flourish, I decided to become a Full Stop supporter.

• 4:53Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 5:05Speaker 02

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

• 5:09Chris 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.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  No. Dude, we got, um, a distributor that I had worked with in the past on a movie like 10 years ago, uh, who really wanted to do California Scheming. Um, like, a year before we started shooting, wanted to put in money upfront and be the UK distributor. Uh, 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. 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.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 6:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 6:24Speaker 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. So we sat down and have a cup of tea and go, what do you think? He's like, yeah, yeah, there's, um, there's a film in there.

• 6:43Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh!

• 6:44Speaker 02

  There's a film in there.

• 6:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh!

• 6:46Speaker 02

  And you're like, oh!

• 6:50Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know, I know. And you're like, you're kinda going, I think there's personal stuff here, maybe it's that. And we, 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 and all. So we were like, we knew it worked.

• 7:09Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  But I was like, ooh, it was exactly what you're saying. So the lighting.

• 7:15Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, cuz I guess we don't have an IMDb logline yet, do we?

• 7:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Let me see, cuz I have your page up here. You do! You do have an IMDb logline.

• 7:30Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay, we're gonna do it.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Do the thing. You gotta do the IMDb logline. You gotta say, as always.

• 7:34Lizzie Bassett?

  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." Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 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. Um, and they went down to London. They did a big, huge open audition 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, they rerecorded 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.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  They created a whole backstory about known D12, known Eminem and all that, who they then later had to support

• 8:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 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

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:04Chris 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.

• 10:18Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Oh, she's great.

• 10:27Lizzie 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,

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 11:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Thank you for that.

• 11:11Speaker 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, after 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'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 M O S. And yeah, it ended up being an hour and forty five. But yeah, I wanted to make

• 11:52Speaker 02

  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.

• 12:25Chris Winterbauer?

  It has great momentum.

• 12:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, it does.

• 12:27Chris 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.

• 12:41Speaker 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. And the thing that you both create together. And sometimes you get in a way the momentum, line to line, beat to beat, and you mess up. Anyway, I

• 13:25Speaker 02

  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 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 D P, James Rhodes, he did an amazing job, great background in in live musical performance photography.

• 13:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Which makes sense for this movie.

• 14:00Speaker 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 it'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?

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Um, 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 working class Scottish council estates.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  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

• 15:28Lizzie Bassett?

  A movie?

• 15:29Speaker 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 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. And 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?

• 16:06Lizzie 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.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  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

• 16:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 16:52Chris Winterbauer?

  We were gonna ask about that.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Because, 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 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 that's all we got. But people say to me, like, I know, it's terrible how

• 17:38Speaker 02

  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, 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 an 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

• 18:22Speaker 02

  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.

• 18:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 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, but yeah.

• 18:47Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 18:54Speaker 02

  It was a strong, it was a bold choice.

• 18:56Lizzie 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?

• 19:03Speaker 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.

• 19:18Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 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.

• 19:32Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 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. And I was like, honestly, this is potentially quite a treacherous move, yeah, self sabotage.

• 19:47Chris Winterbauer?

  That's why I removed the Casablanca references from the first movie I did, right at the beginning. But yeah.

• 19:54Chris Winterbauer?

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• 21:03Chris Winterbauer?

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• 22:05Lizzie Bassett?

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• 23:16Chris Winterbauer?

  We gotta ask, 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-

• 23:32Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 23:38Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:43Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 23:47Speaker 02

  That's a great film.

• 23:48Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 23:51Lizzie Bassett?

  He is so good. I really was blown away.

• 23:54Chris 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're great performers. They, I love their accent, like, the American accents they do.

• 24:08Lizzie Bassett?

  The code switching is crazy.

• 24:09Chris Winterbauer?

  It's so good.

• 24:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 24:13Speaker 02

  It was, it was an interesting process. It was quite long. 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, 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, 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. And we started early, we saw a

• 24:57Speaker 02

  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 being great. I got lucky in that the first person I ever auditioned in my life as a director was Samuel Bottomley.

• 25:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 25:31Speaker 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. Because, well, Gavin's role is more troubled, and there's, I guess there's more handholds for an actor to get into the role of Gavin. He's getting more inner turmoil, he's getting 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 you can't,

• 26:14Speaker 02

  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, 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.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Sam made everybody else better when they worked with him. 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 canceled 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

• 27:35Speaker 02

  go again. And so we went again. And, yeah, no, I know. It was, 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.

• 28:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, she's really lovely.

• 28:11Speaker 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, 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, on to 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 going to get caught or not? I'm just not interested in them.

• 28:57Speaker 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.

• 29:09Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  And so I was like, great, I've nailed it. 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 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.

• 29:49Speaker 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, I don't know if that's a lesson for the future or not.

• 30:04Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 30:13Speaker 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.

• 30:23Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 30:25Speaker 02

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

• 30:28Chris 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?

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:45Chris 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 kidding.

• 31:02Speaker 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.

• 31:45Chris Winterbauer?

  I think we do.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Joe Wright did something that no director I've ever worked with before or since has ever done.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  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 in 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. 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.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  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 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. 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.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  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, your characterization has the right limp or the right funny walk and the patch and the whatever. 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 disagrees with me. You're totally allowed to do your own thing and it's cool.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  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 cast that I've worked with with him. Is that when we walk on stage, we feel like we are enough.

• 35:19Speaker 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 would name check everybody I've stolen from.

• 35:42Chris 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, I know I'm short a million things.

• 35:50Lizzie Bassett?

  No, not just one thing. Share as much as you want.

• 35:53Chris Winterbauer?

  I know we're at it, we're close on time, but please, what went wrong?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Man, um, 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 cause it might be litigious and all that stuff. So it's, it's really.

• 36:13Chris Winterbauer?

  We'll save that for later.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  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. And 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.

• 36:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  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? 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 uni, 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, man. Oh, mate. All right. So I, I, I like got them in there, got them into a skate community and I got them going, right? And, uh, 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 with a low budget independent movie.

• 37:30Speaker 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 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 roll.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Sam breaks his elbow.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  No, 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 gosh, 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.

• 38:19Lizzie Bassett?

  You did, you shot at the Barrowlands, right?

• 38:22Speaker 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 Barrowlands, which cannot double as a Brixton Academy, cause it's so unique and so strange looking. It's got this big curved ceiling. And we were 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?

• 38:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 02

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

• 38:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Which is amazing. We couldn't pay them to come, cause that was gonna 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, uh, with a real band. And we got them to come in naughty's sort of, um, 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.

• 39:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Are you kidding? I bet they were thrilled.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Oh, it was amazing. It was like such a buzz. The, um, there's a thing in Glasgow where at 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 Rowan famously had one where they, they adapted it for Chapel, Chapel, Chapel fucking Rowan. It was great. 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 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, I'm weirdly not a fan of musicals or biopics.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  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 gonna do this? And, um, 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 the money together for a soundtrack, which was ridiculous. We had an amazing composer, Ben Rafferty, who did The Substance.

• 40:45Chris Winterbauer?

  I May Destroy You, I think he did that.

• 40:47Speaker 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 can 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.

• 41:08Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 41:10Speaker 02

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

• 41:13Chris 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.

• 41:20Speaker 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.

• 41:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Right.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Where it's like.

• 41:33Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 41:36Speaker 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.

• 41:49Lizzie Bassett?

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

• 41:56Speaker 02

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

• 42:03Chris 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?

• 42:10Speaker 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.

• 42:33Lizzie Bassett?

  Thank you so much.

• 42:34Speaker 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.

• 42:41Lizzie Bassett?

  It's weird talking to you too.

• 42:43Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 42:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 42:52Chris Winterbauer?

  What a 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.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Thanks, you guys.

• 43:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Congratulations and thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. We, we appreciate you, your art, your actual financial support of our show. You're the absolute best. You're a king.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Don't forget, guys, I paid for this. Thank you for making it a satisfying experience.

• 43:15Chris Winterbauer?

  We will, and we'll be buying tickets to your movie and the Ora Moros continues.

• 43:19Lizzie Bassett?

  We love you so much.

• 43:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you so much, James. We appreciate you.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys.