James McAvoy & Elliot Page

It's an X-MEN reunion with James McAvoy & Elliot Page! Recorded at New York Comic Con, Elliot and James compare their superpowers, talk about the meaning of X-Men in their lives, and talk everything from INCEPTION and THE ODYSSEY to SPLIT and NARNIA. UPCOMING EVENTS Brendan Fraser 11/18 in NYC -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  What I really enjoy is when you're walking down the street and people call out a name of a character that you played. And sometimes you'll be like, "Oh, that guy's gonna do it. He's gonna do it." And then he surprises you and he's like, "Mr. Thomas!" And you're like, "All right, didn't expect that."

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now.

• 0:52Josh Horowitz?

  Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Are you ready for an X-Men reunion with two legends? I am, I was. Elliot Page, James McAvoy, recorded at New York Comic Con. A really cool, geeky, fun conversation with two actors that are fantastic in that series and so much more. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out the podcast. Boy, we're zigging and zagging. One second it's Martin Sheen, one second it's X-Men. And yeah, this is the X-Men episode. So for those that weren't able to be there at New York Comic Con, I want to share this. This is a live event that we recorded there. And like I said, kind of a mini reunion. Obviously Elliot and James McAvoy didn't necessarily

• 1:36Josh Horowitz?

  share a lot of screen time, but they certainly, X-Men certainly was important in both of their respective careers. So you're gonna enjoy this chat a lot. More on that in a second. Quickly, as always, patreon.com. That's where you get all the early access. You can see and watch everything early before anybody else. You also get heads up on upcoming guests. You can ask questions of the guests. You can get autographed merch, access to our live events, so much more. Patreon.com/happysadconfused. And a reminder, November 18th, Brendan Fraser.

• 2:09Josh Horowitz?

  First time guest on the pod and we are screening his new movie Rental Family. Get in on that. If you're in New York, this will be a good one. Um, okay. A little more preamble, then we'll get to the main event, I promise. Uh, Elliot Page, James McAvoy, um, two gems. Um, James, of course, has been someone I've done, actually, I've done a lot with both of them over the years, but I don't think Elliot's ever done the podcast before, surprisingly. So this was a fun opportunity to talk about not only their X-Men experiences, but they've obviously both done so much in that kind of Comic Con adjacent world, whether, you know, James and Split, um, you know, uh, he's, you know, he's done stuff in horror.

• 2:54Josh Horowitz?

  He's done a little bit about Narnia, of course. Um, and Elliot Inception, of course, we talk about Inception a bit. Also a little tease of his upcoming re-teaming with Christopher Nolan in The Odyssey. Pretty cool. So, um, as always, in one of these live events, so much energy, so much excitement, playing to, I think, three, 4,000 people in New York Comic Con on that stage. Um, and some really cool stories about X-Men and other things in this. So without any further ado, I think you'll, you'll really get a kick out of this one. Uh, Elliot Page, James McAvoy, joining me onstage in New York Comic Con, talking all things X-Men and more. Enjoy. Hey, Comic Con!

• 3:37Josh Horowitz?

  How's it going, everybody? Look at you all. Look at you beautiful people. Uh, happy last day of Comic Con. No tears, though, guys, because we are ending with a bang. Are you ready to talk X-Men with two iconic actors parts of the franchise?

• 3:57Josh Horowitz?

  Uh, my name is Josh Horowitz. I host the podcast called Happy, Say Confused. I am so privileged to moderate a bunch of stuff here, but this one is special. I love these two actors. I love these films. Not only also, by the way, do these folks have X-Men on their resume. Let's just review for a second Elliot Page, Inception, Umbrella Academy. Come on, guys. James McAvoy.

• 4:23Josh Horowitz?

  From Narnia to Split. I think he knows next-generation trivia more than anybody in this, in this building. I'm not gonna test him. I'm not gonna test you, James. Don't worry. Um, okay, without any further ado, let's fill some seats and have a fun geeky chat, shall we, guys? Please welcome to the stage, James McAvoy, Elliot Page. Come on out, guys.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  That's an amazing reception. Thank you, guys.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  They told you to do that, right?

• 5:11Josh Horowitz?

  That's good energy to start the day, right? That's how you usually start a day. You walk into a room filled with 3,000 people cheering you.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  I just have an applause button. Yeah, by my best.

• 5:22Josh Horowitz?

  So, okay, let's talk. Um, look, you guys, you guys intersect in the X-Men films, but not necessarily a ton of screen time. So like, have you spent more time like on press tours or these kinds of things than actually on set on X-Men?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I think like, we did press for Days of Future Past, right? We spent a little bit of time, I seem to remember talking to you about pitching new ideas and stuff like that, when you were like on, "I'm just trying to have a quiet drink, dude." Uh, when we were, when we were doing the press for Days of Future Past, but that was kind of it. And then a little teeny bit on set, I think, we crossed over.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. That's what I remember as well. Yeah.

• 5:59Josh Horowitz?

  Elliot corroborates the story.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:02Josh Horowitz?

  Um, you guys, as I alluded to, both Comic-Con veterans. Do either of you have memories of a first or indelible Comic-Con memory?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  It was you.

• 6:11Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  My first Comic-Con ever was, uh, New York.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I can't remember what movie it was, I think it was, might have been Wanted or something like that. And, um, you know, back in, on, uh, Wanted. And, um, and weird, this is a weird bit of trivia that nobody will find interesting about my wardrobe. I've not worn this jacket since that day. Isn't that weird? Isn't that crazy?

• 6:37Josh Horowitz?

  What a weird Easter egg.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  And I didn't wear it on purpose, I just realised, I was like, I found it in the wardrobe before I came in. I'm so dull, just talking about wardrobe decisions. And I was thinking, right, um, blue on blue, denim on denim. Uh, yeah, so that was, yeah, that's it.

• 6:55Josh Horowitz?

  Try to one up.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Canadian tuxedo, you know.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Thank you very much, yeah, thank you very much.

• 7:00Josh Horowitz?

  Uh, for you, do you remember the first time we talked, I remember for Umbrella Academy, here actually, but I'm sure you have experience that goes back further.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  I think, if I'm remembering correctly, my first was actually San Diego Comic Con with the movie Super. And I remember having a blast, cause Liv Tyler was there and her and I together wore masks, like to go like walk around everywhere, which was so fun. But Liv, even in the mask, looked so cool, people were asking to take pictures with her, having no idea that it was Liv Tyler. That's my memory from my first.

• 7:34Josh Horowitz?

  Was it a generic mask? Do you remember what the mask was?

• 7:36Speaker 04

  It was, I think it was the V for Vendetta.

• 7:40Josh Horowitz?

  Oh, cool.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  If I'm remembering correctly.

• 7:42Josh Horowitz?

  Nice, nice, nice. So, give me a sense, uh, growing up, what in the Comic Con space were each of you into respectively? Comic book kids, sci-fi, Tolkien? Anything that touched these worlds that you were obsessed with growing up?

• 7:59Speaker 04

  I guess when, I remember when, I forget what age I would have been, maybe 11, 12, and the original Star Wars was re-released in theatres and I was, became completely like hooked and, um...

• 8:13Speaker 04

  I loved Batman, I love Spider-Man, like I loved, yeah, like more superhero stuff when I was a little kid.

• 8:20Josh Horowitz?

  I read something somewhere, tell me if I'm wrong, was Matrix a big film for you?

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Yes, I loved The Matrix, yeah. That explains it.

• 8:27Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:28Josh Horowitz?

  Everybody has that moment when they see The Matrix for the first time and like, what did I just see? What was that?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was just talking about it earlier, actually, with someone who's never seen The Matrix. But I almost was so excited for them, um, but I guess sad that you never had that experience at that time in the theater, just how new and how extraordinary it was visually and, and story-wise.

• 8:51Josh Horowitz?

  Do you know what panel I'm doing here next on this stage right after?

• 8:54Speaker 04

  No, tell me.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  The Matrix?

• 8:55Josh Horowitz?

  The Matrix.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Oh, shit!

• 8:57Josh Horowitz?

  Lawrence Fishburne and Joe Pantoliano are coming on to talk about the panel right after here.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  I met them yesterday, that was pretty freaky getting to meet them.

• 9:04Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  I mean, amazing freaky. Um, stuff that I liked growing up, Lord of the Rings, massive. A bit more niche, the Bill Garry ads, David Eddings, anybody? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo, woo! Um, a lot of sort of stuff in that field, Dune, Frank Herbert's Dune, like, loved it. Narnia, Narnia, man, like, all that. And then in the 90s, I guess, the cartoon for X-Men was massive for me. Never read the comics, um, and I think my most sort of Comic-Con thing that I'm, I still love to this day and I have posters of in my office is The Goonies and Back to the Future.

• 9:47Josh Horowitz?

  You're in a safe space, you're in a very safe space for this. You'll see him. Exactly.

• 10:30Speaker 05

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• 11:18Josh Horowitz?

  As you recall, were Kitty Pryde and Charles Xavier the first comic book roles that came your way? Had you done auditions in that space before, or was that kind of a first for either of you?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  I did Wanted, which is sort of a comic book adaptation back in 2007, and I auditioned for that. I didn't audition for Charles, which is amazing. They just, you know, back on X-Men.

• 11:45Josh Horowitz?

  Offer-only McAvoy, that's what they call you.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. But yeah, so, no, I don't think I went up for too many other superhero parts, other than those two.

• 11:54Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah. And for you, like, where were you at when this opportunity came? Because if I have my timeline right, you'd done Hard Candy, but you hadn't done Juno yet, so you're at this kind of pivotal, Hard Candy's a big film for you, but you're kind of like on the ascent.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had, like, just graduated high school, and I had done Hard Candy, and it had premiered at Sundance, but it hadn't come out yet, so it wasn't, yeah, so it was sort of a surprise to get this call, which, yeah, it was about X-Men. So I think that, for sure, would have been my first. Superhero or comic related or sort of Hollywood movie in general in terms of that scale.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Did you get straight up offered it or did you audition?

• 12:40Speaker 04

  It was, there was a screen test.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Oh, right, okay. I was like, wow, even then.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  So I, I remember flying out to Vancouver for, for a screen test, yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And I did actually audition for another comic book movie in my early career to play a small part of a younger version of a character for the first like five minutes of the movie and then I'd be out of it. Really good scene though. I won't tell you the film, I won't tell you the director, but we had this amazing conversation and this amazing connection and like we're laughing and crying, he's telling me stories about his life and like real deep stuff, quite traumatic stuff that had happened to him. And, and he hugs me at the end and we both cried and like as I'm walking out, he turns to the casting director and he's like, this is the guy, this is the guy. And he never called my agent. I know, I know. And then he offered me a role years later on another movie, which I didn't end up doing with him. And I sat down and chatted with him and I'm like, do you remember me?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  And he was like, no, we've never met before. And I'm like, okay, okay, directors are weird.

• 13:39Josh Horowitz?

  Everybody knows Steven Spielberg is an asshole. No, no, no. So, I mean, Last Stand, I mean, that's a different kind of filmmaking than you had experienced before. It must have been kind of a little bit of a shell shock, like just the scale of the filmmaking. Do you remember that kind of registering like, oh, this is what they say when they say blockbusters, blockbuster filmmaking?

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd never been on any set like it. I grew up acting in Canada as a kid, making, yeah, shows and, you know, independent films and so the, the scale of the production from base camp to set to all of it was very new for me.

• 14:25Josh Horowitz?

  And the ensemble around you, unbelievable. That must have, that must have just.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  That was definitely so intimidating to walk into all these, you know, extraordinary talents and extremely famous people and walking into this, this world. But one thing that I immediately took away from my, my castmates was just how wonderful they were and welcoming and.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Really just made me feel comfortable and included, so that was really nice.

• 15:00Josh Horowitz?

  One thing I feel like both of your characters share is that there are powers that are kind of hard to convey on screen. I mean, Kitty, it's like essentially you're like running at a wall and then in post like, oh, I'm on the other side of the wall. For you, it's like a lot of intense like eyebrow work and pointing to your forehead, which has the tougher power to convey on screen. Fight it out for me.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  You've got other powers than just being able to run through walls though, right?

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, it seems to, it can shift and change.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  A little bit, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think, I don't know who's got the harder job of conveying. I mean, I'm very expressive with my eyebrows. They are thinning as I get older, which really worries me because I don't know if I can do the same kind of work anymore. But hopefully we can, you know, CGI or AI can help me out with that.

• 15:49Josh Horowitz?

  Can you give us the hacky way to do it and the James McAvoy way to do it in terms of?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Well, I found that I was acting too much and I was doing too much, which is why I employed the finger. Because I just thought as soon as I put the finger up there, like, I don't need to do anything. That's like, wow, the finger. But honestly, like when I first said I wanted to do the finger, there was, it was like a discussion. We had the finger conversation. I'm not joking, by the way. I'm not trying to be a dick. And because I don't think Patrick ever did that in the other films. And he does do it in the comic books at times and he did do it in the cartoons. I was like, okay, it's something that he never did. I gotta do it. And then there was a whole discussion about fingering myself on camera. I know.

• 16:38Josh Horowitz?

  I would say I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Go for it. So everyone agreed, yes.

• 16:45Josh Horowitz?

  Did you, so when you're cast, James, like, at what point do you like seek out or receive Patrick Stewart approval? Because you want some tacit thumbs up from him, I would imagine at some point.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I was a fan of his anyway, from like Next Gen and David Lynch's Dune. He played Gurney Halleck and that. And yeah, so it did feel weird, but I also knew I wanted to do something quite different with it. It was probably more different in the first couple of movies than the last couple of movies. But yeah, you wanted him to feel respected and feel sort of like it was the performance was like in conversation with us, even if it is different. Anyway, when I was lucky enough to get to cross over with your cast, one of the few members of the two casts that really got to do that, I got to spend a pretty much a whole afternoon with Patrick and with Serene and Sir Patrick, sorry.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  And while I was getting hair extensions put in, and I went into the trailer and I think Patrick was cooking and Serene was sitting with his feet up in the recliner and I'd just finished doing Macbeth on the West End in London. And I said, "Thank you, thank you." And you should have seen it, it was great. And I go into the trailer and Ian's like going, "You've just come off the stage, James. You've just done Macbeth, haven't you?" And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, that's right." He's like, "Come on, let's all do a bit." Because Patrick had done it as well and I'm like, "What?" And I honestly, I'd only finished, I think, two weeks before and I couldn't remember a single line.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  And these two are like bandying back and forward favorite bits from Macbeth. I was like, "Wow, it's just a different, it's a different kind of actor, a different kind of machine."

• 18:33Josh Horowitz?

  Did you ever, have you ever summoned the courage to do your Picard impression to Patrick Stewart's face? You do a very good Picard.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I used to do it quite well. I've not tried it in years in good.

• 18:44Josh Horowitz?

  There it is.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. Really appreciate that. I don't think I have done it to his face, actually.

• 18:52Josh Horowitz?

  Patrick Stewart, come on. No, we don't have him, we don't have him, I'm sorry. So when the call comes for Days of Future Past, very exciting for the fans, for all of you, I would imagine. The experience on that one, wholly different kind of thing for you, again, just to mix it up with some familiar folks and also meet some new things. What was your perspective on making that one, Elliot?

• 19:11Speaker 04

  Gosh, I mean, it was really, I mean, like, to be honest, in that one, I, it's pretty much what I do. I just... Do a lot of that.

• 19:20Josh Horowitz?

  Right.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  But it was a joy to be back with everybody again to, you know, you're doing this with Hugh Jackman all day. I mean, he's like the nicest person you could meet. So, yeah, I think for me it was just the joy of being back with such a wonderful group of people and to continue to be a part of, you know, such an extraordinary world and legacy of characters that mean so much to people, yeah.

• 19:50Josh Horowitz?

  James, I think you, yeah, James, I think you've said to me that that's your favorite of the X-Men films. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Days of Future Past?

• 19:56Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Um, I go back and forth. There's a toss-up between First Class and Days of Future Past. I feel First Class sort of tried to do something quite different and do a different kind of tonal approach, if you like, which I thought was really cool. And then, but Days of Future Past kind of went more sort of classic, but they did it so, so well. And it was sort of, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm not trying to claim anything because I didn't direct it or write it, but it was sort of one of the first ones that did all that timeline stuff and different university kind of crossover-y stuff that we kind of weren't used to as much back then.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, back then, before the war, you know, back was when we was on rationing and, you know, a can of beef was a luxury. Um, it was, it just felt a bit different and a bit new. So I go back and forth between the two of them, to be honest with you. But I got to do some, like, people are gonna go like, "Oh, you must, you know, get so bored on those big movies and whatever." I'm like, playing Charles in Days of Future Past was like a proper, solid acting workout. It was awesome. It was so good.

• 21:06Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, it's like Charles by way of like Born on the Fourth of July. He's like strung out. It's like, that must be really, and not to mention, you can't just do so much with your buddy Fassbender. Like, I mean, talk about a great screen partner to have.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I actually ended up spending more time with Nick Holt on Days of Future Past. Me and Fazzy were sort of kept apart a lot, which I never quite understood.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Too much friendship.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was cool, you know, like Elliot was saying, we were lucky enough to have an amazing group as well, and no bad eggs, and just real good supportive group energy, which was one of the privileges of my career to do those four films with those guys.

• 21:53Josh Horowitz?

  And talk about good energy, I mean, we feel the love in this room, I know you guys feel the love, I mean.

• 22:03Josh Horowitz?

  The fans truly do make this special, because these films, like, it's kind of like what you're talking about on Matrix, these are cool films, but they're saying something. That's why X-Men works, it's about the outsider, these are like coming out stories in a way, like, it really resonates on many different levels for you. Give me a sense, a little bit of like, I don't know, fan encounters perhaps over the years that touched you, or what do people say to you that really, I don't know, is meaningful for you in relation to your work in X-Men?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  When they tell me that I was better than Patrick, that means so much.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  It really resonates with me and my feelings on the work.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  No, seriously, though.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Honestly, X-Men has, I don't know if it's touched loads of people, but loads of people that come up to me and want me to sign something, or just grab me in the street, the people who aren't even asking for a signature or a photograph, they just want to tell you that they had a tough time at some point. And it really helped, you know, because I think one of the creeds, or the credos, or the themes of it is that whether you're disenfranchised, or whether you're oppressed, or whether you are segregated, or ghettoized, or whatever you are, as so many of the characters in X-Men are, you are enough. And you deserve your place.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And so, and I think that that's quite positive, but yeah, I do get a lot of that from X-Men.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd say my experiences have been so similar in the ways that X-Men has spoken to someone, helped them through difficult times, just been a huge part of their own journey potentially in discovering themselves. And those moments are always literally some of the most special interactions you can have with another person.

• 23:55Josh Horowitz?

  Look, as often happens in these things, like they reiterate, they constantly reiterate, they recast, you know, a recast of sorts from Patrick, we're gonna see another Charles, another Kitty probably before too long perhaps, depending on what you read on the internet. I've heard Coleman Domingo, I've heard Bella Ramsey, I've heard a lot of different names. I don't know if you follow that, you hear that, what do you make of those names? Or just generally the idea of someone inheriting the mantle of these characters from you?

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Like, to me, that's, I wouldn't, I don't really follow, but those names sound fantastic.

• 24:40Josh Horowitz?

  Approved.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  I mean, it'd be just so exciting to see, you know, people do, take on a new iteration.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I totally agree. Look, I'm excited to see what happens next. I was a fan before I was an employee. And, no, you know, and I'll be a fan again. You want it to be, I just can't wait for it to be exciting and to be about, oh no, that was gonna sound bad, it was gonna put a lot of pressure on people. Coleman Domingo sounds amazing though, he is great.

• 25:10Josh Horowitz?

  Meanwhile, Hugh just will always play Wolverine. Like, I mean, apparently, we can't improve upon that.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  I think, like, I was gonna say 10 years from now, it's probably gonna be 10 minutes from now when AI has taken over and playing all the roles and there are no actors anymore, he will still be playing Wolverine. Even AI will be like, nah, you gotta have Hugh. Nah.

• 25:45Speaker 06

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• 26:14Speaker 07

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• 27:15Josh Horowitz?

  Look, you both have such amazing resumes. Like, break it down for me. Like, what portion of folks that come up to you mention X-Men versus other things? What's the most frequent films or projects that usually come up to you? And can you clock, from a mile away, what kind of fan they are?

• 27:34Speaker 04

  I can't clock. I get surprised often, actually.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  I'd say right now, it's a lot of Umbrella Academy people. Love that, which is so nice. It was so fun to make. And I'll tell you, Juno, well, that is just, that just,

• 27:55Speaker 04

  that just keeps going strong.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  So I'd say, and X-Men, of course, but, you know, I'm, I'm not really in them as...

• 28:04Josh Horowitz?

  Don't diminish.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  I'm just saying, I'm just saying, yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  I get, um, yeah, you get, I get a nice broad range, really, but you get, um, what I really enjoy is when you're walking down the street and people call out a name of a character that you played. And sometimes you'll be like, "Oh, that guy's gonna do it, he's gonna do it." And then he surprises you and he's like, "Mr. Tumnus." And you're like,

• 28:27Speaker 01

  "All right, didn't expect that." And then you're walking down the street and someone's like, "You're Professor." And you're like, "Oh, brilliant, cool." But it's quite fun, it is kind of fun. My favorite thing as well is when somebody recognizes you in the street. Or, like, in the middle of a conversation. They kind of look at you and then they lose what they're doing. And they're kind of confused for a second. But what, what happens to their face is not, "Oh, I'm confused, who's that person?" What's happening to their face is they go into such concentration of, "Who the hell is that again?" Their face kind of goes like this, and they look like they want to kill you. Do you ever notice that? You will, you'll be like, "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." And then you see them and you go like,

• 29:09Speaker 01

  like that, and you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." And it took me, it took me like a year or so of this sort of like, certain amount of fame to kind of understand what was happening. I was like, "What the fuck?"

• 29:21Josh Horowitz?

  "I'm going to murder Mr. Tumnus, right here in the Starbucks."

• 29:26Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 29:28Josh Horowitz?

  Let me run down a few of those, of those credits and just the first things that come to mind. You met, you mentioned Narnia. I mean, that was relatively early in your career.

• 29:39Josh Horowitz?

  And, you know, like I was saying to Elliot, that was probably like your equivalent of like Last Stand in that it was like a giant set. It was a giant scale of filmmaking. What are your first memories when I mentioned Narnia to you?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Literally, the first thing that popped into my head was Georgie, who played Lucy. And we played a lot and I think Andrew kinda like stuck us together a lot, the director, who's a great guy, great director.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Just hoping that we would get along a lot and she was a really young girl at the time. I can't remember what age Georgie was, maybe, I don't know, maybe six or seven, I'm not sure. And I don't think she'd acted before, so I just spent a lot of time with Georgie and her family and they were really lovely. So that's the thing that comes to my mind first and then just being on those sets was bonkers, man. You get used to things, but I was like, "Ho, ho, ho." "Ho, ho, ho," you know what I mean? And I don't even think we were texting and stuff back then. It was like, you're just alone with it, you know? Maybe I'd phone home once a day or something like, but you were like, you're in New Zealand, so you're like on another planet.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  But just being alone with like the kind of "Ho, ho, ho"ness of it always amazing.

• 30:52Josh Horowitz?

  And seeing yourself in that makeup and everything, like yeah, today you would be immediately texting every friend and family member, like, "Look at me, this is insane."

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Oh man, and look, that, just to shout out to Howard Berger, Sarah Bano, Tammy Lane, the makeup department and that, they were like my absolute rocks. And to this day, one of like the most fun and closest kinda relationships I've had with anybody on a set really, because we spent so much time with each other. I remember being in like in trailers halfway up a mountain at 3:30 in the morning and you're like, "The A.D.s aren't here yet, like the trailers haven't been unlocked." And we're there early enough to get the makeup done and you're like, "What is going on?" So yeah, they were an incredible crew and Howard's just an incredible designer of makeup and it's incredible work.

• 31:41Josh Horowitz?

  Elliot, you mentioned "Super" earlier, which is like James Gunn when he was like fully authentic, like Maverick crazy James Gunn. I mean, that's an effed up movie in the best possible way. You and Rain got to re-team after Juno. Happy experience working with James, who's just like a madman in the best possible way?

• 32:00Speaker 04

  It was so fun. Such an enjoyable set to be on, such a nice vibe and energy. Everyone there to just work together to tell this crazy story and such a fun, just full-blown character to play. And it was with someone like James, you just, you really trust him when you are pushing it and going far that he's gonna like sort it out tonally. And yeah, that was definitely one of my favorite characters to play, for sure.

• 32:31Josh Horowitz?

  Are you surprised at the trajectory he has taken? I don't know if you've seen the Guardians movies or Superman, but it's like, in some ways, it's obviously authentically him, but it's a different side of him, clearly, than the super guy.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  Yes, for sure. Yeah. But you can see just, I mean, how all those qualities and those strengths, you know, have fed into and made these great projects.

• 32:54Josh Horowitz?

  Inception. I'm gonna mention Inception, because that's... (audience cheering) That project, that, talk about a classic. How does that script read the first time you read it? Do you understand what you're getting yourself into? Did Chris have to kind of walk you through it, or what?

• 33:10Speaker 04

  I'm a little, I mean, maybe a bit of both. I remember sitting, because with Chris, it's very, as I'm sure people know, so secretive. You go to an office, you read the script, then you leave. And same when I just read The Odyssey. And it was the, I mean, I remember it just felt like an engine. Like, you get on a ride, and it's what reading both scripts have felt like. And you're just, it just takes you in. And at first, things feel maybe big or slightly confusing, and all these pieces start coming together. But at the core of it, you know, emotionally, and...

• 33:49Speaker 04

  You know, just these arcs that are so defined and beautiful, sort of despite the massiveness of these projects. And I think that's been my big takeaways from his scripts, his writing.

• 34:02Josh Horowitz?

  It's also, I mean, your character, in a good way for you, I'd imagine, like, is kind of the audience in that and is like the one person in that story that's kind of like, what's going on?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  That's, I mean, literally, the whole movie, I'm just asking questions. That's my...

• 34:15Josh Horowitz?

  Well, that's what I should in that story, like, what?

• 34:17Speaker 04

  It's very, wait, whose subconscious are we going into right now? That's what I do the whole movie. Yeah, yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I think though, like, you kind of, I don't know, you are totally like that sort of David Copperfield. By the way, I love the film. This is why I'm about to lodge in. Actually, I think you'll find.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  You're that David Copperfield character a little bit when you're the, you're kind of the audience in some ways, but you also, like, so young, and you stand, like, as a performer, you stand up to DiCaprio and like you call him out so much in that movie. And like, I don't know, I always had massive respect for you for that because he's incredible, right? He's got this amazing energy. And then when you start taking him to task, I was like, wow. You felt like that's somebody getting put in their place, you know? It was good.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  James, that's nice.

• 35:09Josh Horowitz?

  You've got some gamer cred, thanks to Beyond Two Souls. We should say that. Are you both gamers? Did you grow up gaming? Do you still play games? Give me some sense.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I game a little bit. I gave it up just because I didn't have time and life was too busy, you know, all the movies that I do. And, but then in the pandemic, me and all my buddies got together and we're like, you still got a PlayStation? Yeah, I've got a PlayStation. Should we get a game? Let's get a game. And me and all these other, like, middle-aged white dudes started playing, like, online shooting games. And we were like, oh my God, this is amazing. So that got me back into it. And so I do, I game again.

• 35:49Josh Horowitz?

  What's your favorite? What's consumed the most hours lately?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Straight up, just Call of Duty game. Call of Duty, online shooty, kind of competitive, people screaming at you going like, I can't believe this happened to me again. It's like, when you hear someone on the other end of like the death comms, for anybody that doesn't know, when you shoot someone else and it's a real player in the real world, they open up the mic for like five seconds or whatever, so that you can hear them. And some of the shit you hear is just incredible. You're like, "Why does this always happen to me?" Cuts out and you're like, "It's a grown man."

• 36:25Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 36:26Josh Horowitz?

  Do you ever on your end go, "You just killed James McAvoy"?

• 36:30Speaker 01

  No, but I did, I did play ones with, um, you, you sometimes, if you go on on your own, you can get paired up with a team of like other random strangers. And so there's other team of three people, needed an extra and I get chucked in at their team. They all happened to be from Glasgow, my hometown. They were like, "You sound like that guy, James McAvoy." And I was like, "I know, man. I get it all the time." I know, I know. It was quite funny. And one of them was clearly cheating as well. One of them was using some boosters and that. He got like 20 kills in five minutes. And I was very new to the game. I was like, "How do you do that? I'd love to learn, do you know what I mean?" And the other two guys were like, "We don't, we don't, we don't talk about it, man. We don't talk about it." Cause one of them cheats.

• 37:15Josh Horowitz?

  Um, and then on your end, again, as I said, Beyond Two Souls, but prior to that or since that, is gaming part of your life at all?

• 37:21Speaker 04

  When I was like a kid, I really liked video games. I loved Sega Genesis, I had Playstation. Um, I'd say Sega Genesis is my favorite ever. Um, and then I kind of stopped just because of like life, busy and, but on occasion, I'll get sucked into Nintendo Switch, you know? But I'm more like, I like like Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart and this, this, yeah. I need something like Nintendo Switch because it's a little more, before it got so crazy. So many buttons. I can't keep up. I can't keep up. Yeah.

• 37:55Josh Horowitz?

  Did you enjoy the, that was performance capture? And that's a whole nother beast of acting that I've talked to a lot of actors that absolutely love it. It's kind of back to basics, black box theater in a way. What was your experience doing that?

• 38:07Speaker 04

  I loved it. I'd say it was probably one of the more challenging acting experience as I've done because you're just doing like. Twenty, thirty pages a day. While you're doing one scene, you're literally pausing to do different versions of a line. So going from these like completely emotional extremes, it's like an exercise that you couldn't even create for yourself. So I felt really lucky for honestly just how full throttle it was. But yeah, what a dream and to do it with Willem Dafoe and it was, it was a really good experience.

• 38:41Josh Horowitz?

  And correct me if I'm wrong, are you, is your production company, company adapting it into a TV series?

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's the plan. Yeah, yeah.

• 38:51Josh Horowitz?

  Very cool. Um, let's talk about Split and Glass, James.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  I was in it.

• 39:02Josh Horowitz?

  That's all I needed. Just needed a fact check. But what an opportunity and I know you've said to me and others like it came relatively late in the game and not as much time to prep perhaps as you would have wanted.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Not for Split, yeah, yeah. For Glass I had a lot of time, but yeah, not for Split.

• 39:18Josh Horowitz?

  So how do you, I don't, how much time did you have to prepare and how did you possibly sketch out all of those characters so quickly?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  I'm not, I think I've said like two weeks and my wife who, she used to work at M. Night Shyamalan's company, she's like, you had three. And I'm like, it was still a lot, okay? It's still really impressive. Um, yeah, like two, maybe three weeks. And it was, it was a little bit of a version of what you were saying about like Christopher Nolan scripts, I guess, where it's quite secretive to get the script because Night, not always, but oftentimes is protecting a twist or something that's going to happen that surprises the audience. Um, but he, they weren't going to fly over to hand me the script, so they did send it. But it was like a time limited amount of time that I had to read the script. Um, yeah, it came late in the day.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  I didn't have much time to prep. Uh, I got over there, I spent a week solid with Night, running around the, the production office, like coming up with different characters, coming up with like anybody that was kind of around that. That office must have just thought, what the fuck are they doing? Like, at one point, we tried to figure out how he ran as The Beast. And I'm running up and down the production office, and there's like thirty people employed, and I'm like galloping, and I'm like bounding on all fours and all that, and then it's going, that's the one, that's the one! And then we're like, well, what if Hedwig roller skates? So I'm like roller skating up and down the production office. They were like, these guys are just taking the piss.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  But yeah, so we figured out, I think it's only like, I think it's like four or five main characters that I play in Split, and then with the smaller parts, I think it's like eleven or nine or something like that. But those smaller ones were actually trickier, because you don't have a full character to inform, well, why are they the way they are? And what is their function as part of this community that lives inside of one vessel? And so they felt a bit more like at risk of being, just sort of like putting on a funny voice, really, do you know what I mean? So weirdly, even though you were playing a character that only had, I don't know, thirty seconds of screen time, you had to put in the work to kind of try and flesh them

• 41:36Speaker 01

  out, so that they didn't feel like, oh, here he is, doing a funny voice and a wink or something, you know? But it was an amazing, it was an amazing thing. I love doing my job, I love acting, and people go, that must have been so hard! And you're like, no, what's hard is working on bad material. Like, putting in a lot of effort to something that is well-written isn't necessarily hard, it's like taxing, but it's really rewarding as well. So it was just like getting to do my job nine times instead of one times.

• 42:07Josh Horowitz?

  I imagine those films are on the no-go list for your kids for the rest of their lives, like, you can breeze right past those.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think my eldest has seen Split or Glass. He's actually seen quite a few of my movies now, but I don't think he's seen Split or Glass yet. But yeah, no, definitely. Although I think there's like some funny stuff in both those movies, so, you know, maybe fast forward to the funny bit.

• 42:29Josh Horowitz?

  The funny cut. You can do a fan edit. Umbrella Academy, we should mention, because it's such a...

• 42:37Josh Horowitz?

  A special show to the fans. I would imagine a special show for you for a thousand different reasons. I mean, obviously, it also like dovetailed with the changes in your own life and working with, you know, your collaborators there and them adapting to your transition. What a gift to kind of work with them in that capacity. Give us a little, yeah. So just give me a little bit of a sense of the meaning of Umbrella Academy in your professional and personal life.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh. I mean, professional life, it was just so wonderful to get to be a part of a project that was like as fun and exciting and have the response that it had and also was just really fulfilling as an actor, you know. I really love playing that character. I love this cast and crew that I got to work with for years. It was really, you know, of course, sad to say goodbye to. And we were just so lucky that, obviously, people responded to it in the way that they did. And, yes, personally, it sort of attracts

• 43:48Speaker 04

  my own, you know, transition in my life and the fact that Steve Blackman was so open to making that a part of Victor's story and was, yeah, I just feel really grateful for the whole thing. Yeah.

• 44:13Josh Horowitz?

  You're gonna be in The Odyssey. I know you can't say anything about that, but getting that call from Chris Nolan must be such a special, it's special for any actor, but you've obviously have a history with Chris. Can you give me a little sense of just like how it happened, the veil of secrecy? Does a briefcase come with a script? What happened this time around? Just full of money. Yeah, exactly. A bag of money.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, I was so excited to be thought of for it and to be asked to come back to work with him. I loved working with him on Inception and loved being a part of that movie, so. Yeah, I was just completely jazzed and excited and basically went and met with Chris and talked about the part and then sat in a room and read the script and, you know, it was of course a big yes. Yeah, sadly I can't say much, but yeah, it was such a joy to come back and to come back now, as you can imagine, being more just comfortable

• 45:18Speaker 04

  in yourself makes these sorts of, you know, projects more enjoyable, just waking up every day and going to work. So to kind of get to have a Chris Nolan experience again now, that actually really just meant so much to me, like, yeah, selfishly, just, yeah.

• 45:35Josh Horowitz?

  And then just, I promise, I'm not probing for any like real dirt, but like what we do know is that you're shooting on these massive locations, IMAX cameras, we know that. Did it kind of take your breath away, kind of just being in these environments?

• 45:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, I got to go to some pretty awesome places and it's gonna be epic. It's gonna be extraordinary.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Can I ask a technical question? Is it true about the sound with the IMAX cameras that like a lot of the dialogue is unusable?

• 46:07Speaker 04

  They're really loud and so when you are doing stuff that's close and quieter, he's, they basically made a giant, like, there's just a giant like blimp that goes over it to quiet, to quiet the sound, but it's like huge.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  So it's not like you have to ADR everything?

• 46:25Speaker 04

  No.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Great.

• 46:27Josh Horowitz?

  I know he's been like improving that over the years.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  I think I did, this is when you think of a movie of inception, I think I did like 20 minutes of ADR, like he's, sorry, maybe a lot of people don't know what ADR is. It's a thing in post where you're kind of fixing sound that may like not be clear enough or you're fixing a line completely and as an actor, like you're in a studio watching the film and either matching to your lips or the line could be off camera, but that's something you do usually a lot. But Chris wants like the sound on the day. He hardly uses mics, like you're, it's, he's smiled. Am I, am I even allowed to say this? I'm like, oh no!

• 47:08Speaker 01

  No, no, you might get fired. He's gonna edit you out of the movie.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  Oh no, we made this down.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  You're in so much trouble.

• 47:13Josh Horowitz?

  You're good, you're good, you're good, I promise.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna tell on you and try and get your part.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Don't do it, James.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Honestly, when you were talking about Inception, I'm like, it's one of the few films I can watch again and again and again. I didn't know that you were in The Odyssey, so that when you dropped in, you were in The Odyssey, I was like, "Fuck's sake, man." No, I'm very jealous and also really happy for you.

• 47:41Josh Horowitz?

  Was it a dream? Did it really happen, Inception? Any takes on the ending?

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Well, so the ending, we gotta go, shoot.

• 47:50Josh Horowitz?

  We do sadly have to go pretty soon, but before we do that, I want to give some love. James directed a movie that we're all gonna be seeing, hopefully, pretty soon.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yep, California Skating. Betray Los J- No.

• 48:02Josh Horowitz?

  Anything you can tease the audience about that. You had your premiere at Toronto. Hopefully, we'll see it before too long. But what a moment in a career, something that's a whole new adventure for you.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. I had a great time doing it, which is not any reason why anybody should watch it. It was great for me. No, it's a really great, it's a true story about two guys in Scotland back in the early 2000s who tried to make it as rap artists and in their own voices, in their own accents that sounded like mine, but probably thicker as well. And they kinda got laughed out of the industry. And so they came back and they reinvented themselves and pretended to be California skater dudes, rewrote all their music, re-did, re-recorded it all with American accents, and the same companies that laughed

• 48:49Speaker 01

  them out of the business gave them a record deal for 60 grand. And they went on to have a pretty wild ride as two young guys who essentially had to become method actors for two and a half years. And they lived it 24/7, even when they were on their own, and it's really entertaining, it's really funny, it's really tragic at some points, but it's, I'm really proud of it. Hopefully, you'll all get to see it next year.

• 49:22Josh Horowitz?

  You have 3,000 tickets sold just from this audience.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Guys, give us a follow on Instagram on @CaliforniaScheming. We'd appreciate it.

• 49:29Josh Horowitz?

  #CaliforniaScheming. Aspirations? You've directed for television, some you obviously are producing. Aspirations to direct? Is that on the list or happy to do what you're doing?

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Maybe I'm kind of, yeah, right now I'm just, yeah, producing and that's what I'm enjoying.

• 49:42Josh Horowitz?

  Excellent. Um, thank you guys so much for geeking out with me and all these folks. You've honestly contributed so much, obviously in the X-Men franchise and beyond. Thank you for your time. Thank you all of you for coming out today. Give it up one more time. Elliot Page, James McAvoy.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley and I definitely wasn't prepared to do this by Josh.

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