To cinephiles believing British accents sound sophisticated and classy on the big screen, especially when it comes to Hollywood fantasy and epic heroes, proud Scot James McAvoy dissents.
The Speak No Evil star is bringing his directorial debut California Schemin’ to the Toronto Film Festival for a world premiere, and his hip hop hoax movie reveals why Scots speaking with a different accent from the English face key barriers to success down south.
“In my journey, in my world, did I feel less than? Yeah, a little bit, because to this day there just isn’t a lot of work out there for people with Scottish accents, unless they’re able to change their accent,” McAvoy told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of a Sept. 6 world premiere in Toronto for his feel-good real-life saga.
California Schemin’ is based on the true story of two Scottish friends, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who pretended to be a California rap duo, Silibil N’ Brains, to realize their dream of hip-hop stardom. That’s after their first-ever audition in London with a record label saw them quickly laughed off stage as the “rapping Proclaimers.”
Bitter over that rejection, Bain and Boyd decided to reinvent themselves as Los Angeles homeboys, re-recorded their tracks with American accents and claimed to be childhood friends of Eminem that grew up in the “projects” in Beverly Hills. UK music industry execs in London it turns out were easily duped by the would-be American rappers and their loud and crazy California personas on stage and off.
That’s until their cover in California Schemin’ as rapping imposters was blown and the emotional strain of denying their Scottishness and their fractured friendship revealed itself. “The boys paid a great price for their gambit, but I was excited to tell the legend of what they did, and that’s what the people of Scotland go wild for,” McAvoy says.
He recalled first reading the film’s script by Elaine Gracie and Archie Thompson about two young Scots trying to ride a good time, and yet knowing it would end, and seeing in their journey his own when as a working class Scot he first tried to make it as an actor in England. “I understood there wasn’t a lot of work out there for people who sounded like me,” McAvoy explains.
Of course, becoming an actor with a ready ear for accents, McAvoy had a creative license to pretend to be other people. That led to early breakout roles in Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Last King of Scotland and in the historical drama Atonement in the role of the falsely accused Robbie Turner, alongside Keira Knightley.
Patriot Pictures CEO Michael Mendelsohn, who financed and produces California Schemin,’ argues McAvoy brought that same artistic drive and grit that led to Hollywood success to his film set as a director. “James was the first to the set every day. He beat the grips, the truckers. And he was always thoughtful about the other workers and the movie,” he recounts.
In California Schemin’, which is based on Gavin Bains’ autobiography, the two rappers in disguising their Scottish roots with a lie risked a clash with Britain’s notorious “class ceiling” based on upbringing, education and accents. Significantly, Bain and Boyd decided against trying to pry open closed doors to social mobility in Britain and became faux Americans instead.
That allowed McAvoy to explore the personal toll on Scots from working class backgrounds like his own who leave behind their authentic selves for what they see as a golden ticket to record label deals and fame. “Rap music is all about the streets that you come from and what made you. And they let that go. So could they keep themselves sane? Could they keep their relationship with each other? Could they keep their relationship with their own sanity, while forsaking their roots? In a less sensational way, that has been my journey for 30 years,” McAvoy questions.
The Scottish actor, who had come out of Glasgow’s working class Drumchapel neighborhood and worked his own way through drama school, managed to thread that needle with a blend of steely confidence inspired by his grandparents and a “pragmatic pessimism” about a profession where most actors were out of work. “I did probably for the first ten years of my career wonder if at some point my time would be up, and now maybe I feel like that again, but I also don’t care, because I’ve had a great time,” McAvoy says.
Producer Mendelsohn recalls jitters for McAvoy ahead of his cameras rolling coming more from a novice director than the assured actor his fans know. “I would often say to him, James, let’s not talk to the director right now. Let’s talks to James McAvoy the actor. James McAvoy the actor can read the phone book and make that fantastic. And I don’t know why James McAvoy as the director is doubting himself. You’ve got it, my friend,” he recalls.
But the film’s Scottish rappers with American accents didn’t see their rap world dreams realized. Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, as talented and hungry as they were for a record deal, were eventually found out as imposters.
McAvoy admires the Scottish rap duo for their daring-do pursuit of stardom, but also argues chasing success in entertainment and the arts should have nothing to do with your regional accent and class background, and should hinge on whether you are talented and willing to pull out all stops to get to the top.
“That’s really upsetting, because we think we live in capitalist democracies in the western world, pretty much, and we think if you work hard enough, and you’ve got a good enough idea and you’ve got the talent, you can make it to the top. You might not, but you got the opportunity,” McAvoy argues.
“And then you get something as simple as, yeah, you don’t look right or, yeah, you don’t sound right. You don’t fit the bill. And that feels like the old world. That doesn’t feel like capitalist democracy. That feels like a feudal monarchy. And you’re surprised to get that in music,” he adds.
Studiocanal has scooped the UK and Ireland rights for California Schemin’ and Bankside Films will shop the film to international buyers in Toronto. UTA Independent Film Group is handling a North American deal.