James McAvoy speaks about being reduced to an accent, Scots being discouraged from making films about themselves, and his directorial debut, California Schemin’ (Film Interview)

Despite being ‘the guy playing the Scottish king in the Scottish play,’ James McAvoy’s Macbeth was once dubbed, shockingly, too Scottish.​

The BAFTA-award-winning, baby-blue-eyed wise-cracker recalls one director’s particularly patronising comment about his voice. ‘Just so you know, James,’ he said. ‘You might hear me go click-click-click.’ James demonstrates. Click-click. ‘Scottish!’ the director would clip. As if ‘Scottish’ were a command like ‘shoes off at the door.’ James mimics the smarmy accent, full-on Queen’s English variety. It seems to be a solid impression. Of course, the actor paid no mind. ‘I was like… you’re a prick.’ He shrugs. ‘I just ignored the guy and did my own thing.’

‘People are getting told they can’t do something because of how they sound’ – James McAvoy on California Schemin’ and Arts Accessibility for Scots.

We’re in Jack’s Bar at Glasgow’s Dakota Hotel. McAvoy’s limbs unlock loose as he sprawls on the couch. McAvoy, like many Scots, is no stranger to being reduced to an accent. ‘I’ve faced it once when I was fifteen or sixteen in my own country at the hands of a posh jock,’ he explains. ‘It comes in different forms, doesn’t it?’

He’s even been asked to lose his accent off-camera, not because of his character, but because people don’t understand him. The cast around us, including Glaswegians Séamus McLean Ross (Gavin Bain) and Lucy Halliday (Mary Boyd), nod empathically.

This doesn’t just impact actors, as shown by McAvoy’s upcoming film (and his directorial debut), California Schemin’.

In the early 2000s, scrappy Scottish rappers Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd were laughed out of an audition room for sounding ‘too Scottish.’ The duo, nicknamed the Proclaimers of hip-hop, set out on a madcap scheme: get in, screw the system.

The devil-may-care duo re-recorded with American accents, auditioned again, and skated their way into the UK music industry as Silibil N’ Brains, from LA. This is the bizarre, true story of California Schemin’, which the stars took to the red carpet on March 8th at the closing gala of Glasgow Film Festival.

James McAvoy and the cast of California Schemin’ at the Glasgow Film Festival 2026. Image Credit: GFF/Eoin Carey.

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‘We’re not fully represented,’ James asserts, simply and solemnly. It’s a reality most from the cold north are aware of. ‘It’s shite being Scottish,’ so goes the line in Trainspotting. It’s a movie McAvoy has in mind. In fact, he further immortalises the famous scene on a mural in the film. ‘I did fucking wonder why,’ he snorts. (He’s quite candid.) ‘When your directorial debut is also calling to the audience’s mind the greatest Scottish fucking film ever made – is that really a wise idea?’​

With the Tories plotting to cut funding for ‘dead-end’ creative arts courses, and the sudden, recent closure of Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, I couldn’t help but press James on this issue. The working class, especially the Scottish working class, have suffered severe systemic displacement from film and the arts at large.

In many state schools, subjects like drama are underfunded, not taken seriously or do not exist in the first place. It begs the question: who are the arts for? How does California Schemin’ contribute to that conversation?

James’s brow furrows. He considers it seriously. He wants to ‘display this miscarriage of social justice.’​

He says, ‘people are getting told they can’t do something because of where they’re from and because of the way they sound. I feel like we are being indirectly told we can’t make films about ourselves and the proof is that something as good as Trainspotting was thirty years ago. What’s been since then?’​

Although we now have hits like last summer’s Glasgow-based I Swear, the average Scot, James laments, will likely struggle to name more than a few films that they not only think are good, but that have ‘successfully cemented themselves in the collective subconscious.’​

He explains, as much as the movie is rife with shenanigans and silliness, ‘it’s actually about this bigger gap in our cultural diet. We can’t expect Hollywood to pay for it. It’s not Hollywood’s responsibility to cater to Scotland’s cultural needs. It’s not even England’s responsibility, necessarily. So something needs to change.’

California Schemin’ will be in UK cinemas from 10th April.

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