James McAvoy recalls audition con with Tom Hardy that mirrors new film

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James McAvoy could relate to the true story of two aspiring Scottish rappers who pretended to be Americans to chase their hip-hop dreams in the early 2000s.

Early in his acting career, McAvoy — who hails from Glasgow, Scotland — auditioned for a role requiring him to play someone from northern England.

“I once went up for a role and my agent said, ‘They only want to hire a young guy from the north of England.’ I wasn’t from there, but she told me to get on a train and go up there and audition,” he says laughing in a Zoom call on a recent Monday evening.

The idea was that the casting agents wouldn’t know where he was from, allowing him to bluff his way into the part.

“I went up there and pretended to be from the local area and just made s*** up. I was making up place names that don’t exist. I was doing this accent … and I came out of the audition and I see Tom Hardy sitting there. We had met on Band of Brothers … He had been told the same thing. He looked at me and said, ‘Alright, mate.'”

It’s a story that McAvoy, 47, can laugh at now. But it echoes the plot of California Schemin’, his directorial debut that is now playing in theatres.

The film centres on Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, a rap duo from Dundee, Scotland, who conned the music industry when they posed as California rappers in a bid to land a record deal.

They hatched their plan after being laughed out of an audition and getting dubbed as “the rapping Proclaimers.”

Rechristening themselves as Silibil N’ Brains, Gavin and Billy (played in the film by Séamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley) planned to reveal their con on MTV and embarrass the music industry for not giving them a chance.

But the trappings of fame proved too irresistible and the two kept their charade going for several years.

California Schemin’ marks McAvoy’s directorial debut, and the story of Gavin and Billy sums up his complicated feelings about the entertainment industry.

“This whole business is built on sacrifice. That sacrifice might mean your dignity, your authenticity, your integrity or your physical well-being,” McAvoy says.

McAvoy found fame at a young age, acting on Band of Brothers and appearing in 2007’s Oscar-winning Atonement when he was just 28.

Gavin and Billy’s fall from grace is a reminder that the pursuit of fame comes at a price.

“These are young people and you’re telling them, ‘Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice to get what you want to get,'” he says. “But at some point you’re going to have to pay the price … and that’s when people fall apart.”

McAvoy also recognized the pressure of growing up somewhere where a career in the arts could seem almost laughable.

But the Golden Globe nominee wanted to make a film that would be more than just a cautionary tale about the pursuit of fame.

“Their neighbourhood was something I definitely recognized. It’s a place where there aren’t that many opportunities, especially for artists. That was important to me. I kind of knew I wanted to do that,” he says when describing how he decided to direct California Schemin’. “But I also wanted to entertain and do something that was fun, not just poverty pornography.”

From actor to director

Working in Marvel’s X-Men franchise, where he played a young Professor Charles Xavier in the First Class trilogy, was the perfect training ground to tell Gavin and Billy’s story, he adds.

“Because those movies are so sprawling, stuff can get lost,” McAvoy says. “It was a hard environment to work in. But I think it helped train me to marshal a character’s arc and protect it and make it clear and that helped me as a director.”

After 30 years as an actor, McAvoy, who has a supporting role in California Schemin’ as the record exec who signs off on Silibil N’ Brains, drew from his experience working with directors like M. Night Shyamalan, David Leitch and Danny Boyle.

But despite a stacked acting resume he admits he’s not a cinephile.

“I don’t want to rehash what other people have done. I’m not saying this story hasn’t been done before, it has. But we are here for stories to be told again and again and again,” he says. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Shakespeare performed 5,000 times every year. We’re here for somebody else’s version of it. We’re here for other iterations, but those iterations need to be authentic.”

McAvoy says his past work has influenced California Schemin’ in ways he may not even consciously recognize.

“The inspiration is there but it’s there osmotically,” he says. “I’m absorbing it from my last 30 years of work.”

Even though Bain and Boyd never achieved the lasting stardom they hoped for, McAvoy sees something of his own experience in their rise and fall.

“It’s a story that has quite affecting consequences for the boys,” he says. “We want (artists) to be fragile because then they’re more dynamic and exciting to watch. But they are people, and they do break sometimes.”

California Schemin’ is now playing in theatres.

mdaniell@postmedia.com