{"id":4248,"date":"2025-09-06T20:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4248\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T20:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:45:09","slug":"james-mcavoy-fake-scottish-rappers-conning-world-california-schemin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4248\/","title":{"rendered":"James McAvoy Fake Scottish Rappers Conning World California Schemin\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTo cinephiles believing British accents\u00a0sound sophisticated and classy on the big screen, especially when it comes to Hollywood fantasy and epic heroes, proud Scot James McAvoy<\/a> dissents. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Speak No Evil star is bringing his directorial debut California Schemin\u2019 to the Toronto Film Festival<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn my journey, in my world, did I feel less than? Yeah, a little bit, because to this day there just isn\u2019t a lot of work out there for people with Scottish accents, unless they\u2019re able to change their accent,\u201d McAvoy told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of a Sept. 6 world premiere in Toronto for his feel-good real-life saga.<\/p>\n

\n\tCalifornia Schemin\u2019\u00a0is based on the true story of two Scottish friends, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who pretended to be a California rap duo, Silibil N\u2019 Brains, to realize their dream of hip-hop stardom. That\u2019s after their first-ever audition in London with a record label saw them quickly laughed off stage as the \u201crapping Proclaimers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBitter 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 \u201cprojects\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s until their cover in California Schemin\u2019 as rapping imposters was blown and the emotional strain of denying their Scottishness and their fractured friendship revealed itself. \u201cThe boys paid a great price for their gambit, but I was excited to tell the legend of what they did, and that\u2019s what the people of Scotland go wild for,\u201d McAvoy says.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe recalled first reading the film\u2019s script by Elaine Gracie and Archie Thompson\u00a0about 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. \u201cI understood there wasn\u2019t a lot of work out there for people who sounded like me,\u201d McAvoy explains.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tPatriot Pictures CEO Michael Mendelsohn, who financed and produces California Schemin,\u2019\u00a0 argues McAvoy brought that same artistic drive and grit that led to Hollywood success to his film set as a director. \u201cJames 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,\u201d he recounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn California Schemin\u2019, which is based on Gavin Bains\u2019 autobiography, the two rappers in disguising their Scottish roots with a lie risked a clash with Britain\u2019s notorious \u201cclass ceiling\u201d based on upbringing, education and accents.\u00a0 Significantly, Bain and Boyd decided against trying to pry open closed doors to social mobility in Britain and became faux Americans instead. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat 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. \u201cRap 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,\u201d McAvoy questions. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Scottish actor, who had come out of Glasgow\u2019s 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 \u201cpragmatic pessimism\u201d about a profession where most actors were out of work. \u201cI 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\u2019t care, because I\u2019ve had a great time,\u201d McAvoy says.<\/p>\n

\n\tProducer Mendelsohn recalls jitters for McAvoy ahead of his cameras rolling coming more from a novice director than the assured actor his fans know. \u201cI would often say to him, James, let\u2019s not talk to the director right now. Let\u2019s talks to James McAvoy the actor. James McAvoy the actor can read the phone book and make that fantastic. And I don\u2019t know why James McAvoy as the director is doubting himself. You\u2019ve got it, my friend,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the film\u2019s Scottish\u00a0rappers\u00a0with American accents didn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMcAvoy 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s 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\u2019ve got a good enough idea and you\u2019ve got the talent, you can make it to the top. You might not, but you got the opportunity,\u201d McAvoy argues.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd then you get something as simple as, yeah, you don\u2019t look right or, yeah, you don\u2019t sound right. You don\u2019t fit the bill. And that feels like the old world. That doesn\u2019t feel like capitalist democracy. That feels like a feudal monarchy. And you\u2019re surprised to get that in music,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\n\tStudiocanal has scooped the UK and Ireland rights for California Schemin\u2019 and Bankside Films will shop the film to international buyers in Toronto. UTA Independent Film Group is handling a North American deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To cinephiles believing British accents\u00a0sound sophisticated and classy on the big screen, especially when it comes to Hollywood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,4965,4966,278,1998],"class_list":["post-4248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-mcavoy","tag-keira-knightley","tag-music","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}