He went from a Glasgow council estate to Hollywood fame. Now, in his directorial debut, the X-Men star is challenging stereotypes about his homeland via the remarkable tale of a real-life hip-hop hoax
I
t’s the final night of the Glasgow film festival and James McAvoy is a wee bit out of breath. His directorial debut, California Schemin’, is playing across all three screens at the Glasgow Film Theatre in the city centre, taking the festival’s prestige closing slot.
Usually, a big name would say a few words of introduction in the main cinema then bask in the glory. Not McAvoy. Getting in among it still comes naturally 25 years after he left this city to pursue a career that has blazed from his award-winning Cyrano de Bergerac in the West End of London to playing Professor X, the founder of the X-Men, in the blockbuster Hollywood franchise.
He bounces into every screen in turn to explain why he cares so much about the film he’s made: a wild ride based on the true story of two talented chancers from Dundee who posed as Los Angeles rappers and conned a major label in London into signing them. He wanted, he tells the audience, to make a film “for people from the kind of council estate I grew up on”. He’s nervous; he puffs out his cheeks, as if this all might have been a terrible mistake, before finally sinking into his seat.
