James McAvoy: 'I'm always going to try and find the laughs'

With more than 60 roles across stage and screen – from his early days in Channel 4's Shameless and his Bafta-nominated lead role in Atonement to playing Professor X in the X-Men franchise and a villainous turn in M Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable trilogy – there's no genre that James McAvoy hasn't become acquainted with. 

Yet with the release of this year's California Schemin', his directorial debut, the veteran Scottish star feels like he's returned to infancy. "I should be quite confident in myself and know what I can do, but as a director, I'm just starting out," he says candidly over a video call. "It's a strange thing to balance the nerves of being a rookie and a 47-year-old with experience."

The musical biopic – charting the rise and fall of Scottish pals Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd as pretend American rap duo Silibil N' Brains, based on Bain's 2010 memoir – offers a raucously giddy take on the underdog story. It stars Séamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley as the rappers, along with McAvoy himself as a record industry exec. As a Glasgow-born lad, raised by his grandparents on a Drumchapel council estate after his parents divorced, it gave McAvoy the chance to offer a mainstream portrait of Scottish life, on an indie budget, that goes beyond the grim stereotypes of addiction, poverty, and abuse. "It's a commercial, fun movie with a bit of a message about identity, both personal and national, that was genuinely from my soul," he says.

The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive and the film has just landed on digital platforms. Now he's back to acting, currently shooting Frankie Boyle's darkly comic crime series Meantime in Glasgow, where he's reunited with director Jon S Baird, with whom he collaborated on Filth in 2013. He’s enjoying the break from being in charge, but he's resolved on what the next 30 years of his artistic life will look like: "The older I get, the more I've got to be working on something I'm willing to sweat blood for. If not, I think I'd rather just be painting the back of the house."

That is an important contract, but the contract can be loose. California Schemin' is about how willing you are to sacrifice what you need to get what you want. We need to be able to recognise ourselves when we look in the mirror and either be OK or not OK with the person we see. I've done shows and movies that I did for the money, but someone said to me once: "You need to think about three things: are you doing it for the art, the profile, or the money?" If it ticks two of those boxes, it's a goer. 

I'm lucky enough to have two acting agents, who are probably going: "You need to make some fucking money after directing a Scottish independent feature." So I think they've embargoed anything coming to me. I have had some nice offers, but I'd like to also try to construct my own stuff as well.

I watch dark films, I watch really sad films, but what I felt needed to come from me, and what was genuine to me, was that I'm always going to try and find the laughs, even if it is dark at times. I don't think I'm known as a comedic actor at all.

Thank you very much! I think I'm hilarious in most things, so I think as a director that might be a facet of what I do going forward. You go through moods in your life, so maybe it will get darker and more upsetting at some point – I just want to make entertaining movies.

It is an absolute doddle compared to directing, but this job is 16 weeks, and I'm in every single scene, which I didn't quite realise when I read it. But I enjoy the more concentrated way of telling a story as an actor, because it's so intimate and more transparently me sharing with the audience.

I did! We did a play that Kathy Burke directed back in 2000 or 2001 at the Hampstead theatre. We had to do a lot of snogging in the first two minutes of the play. Not every night, but quite often, you'd just get some older gentleman go "oh for Pete's sake" and walk out. So yeah, we're intimately acquainted.

Well, I did Stand Up to Cancer's Great British Bake Off, and I won it. The weird thing, though, is that I had an advantage. I was a trainee confectioner for three years, which I said on camera, but they nixed it from the show. I love Ninja Warrior, but I wouldn't stand a chance. I would definitely do Wipe Out. I was asked to do Strictly a long time ago. I declined it, but I love to dance, and love Strictly.

It looks like such a giggle.

My wife's pretty heroic.

Yes, frankly.

A very near and dear member of my family used to call me, not affectionately, but when I'd done something bad – or when they stubbed their toe – they would use the term "bastarding cunt".

On set last night at 12.30am.

To myself, when I forgot a line.

I don't know if I've successfully transmitted it to either of them, but I was taught by my grandparents that other people's opinion of you is none of your business. You can't do anything about it, you just have to get on and not abandon all hope that you might be able to have a positive effect on other people. It's why you don't read reviews.

I've read a few, but the thing that I don't understand – more when it's a superstar director or actor – is when the review becomes personal. It seems to be a sport, almost, to go for the person to be nasty, particularly to women. The first X-Men movie we did was very highly reviewed, and I'm really proud of it, yet I cannot remember a single thing from any review except for the one that called me "chubby". I think reviews became a form of entertainment in themselves, which cultivated this culture of pugilism against the artist, almost. It doesn't seem to be so much a factor any more, which I appreciate as a reader.

I don't want to get too much into the sociopolitical because I'm just an actor, and what do I know?

I know, but I've not got to where I've got, and people haven't forked out their cash to come and see me in the cinema, or paid their TV licence to watch me on the BBC, so that they can then hear me talk about the Labour party as opposed to the Conservatives, and all my beliefs. But as I am an artist and I am an actor, I would love to see more regional and nationwide representation of all people, of all genders, of all sexual identities, religious, fucking everything, that makes up this massive island … We are blessed with consciousness and imagination in life, so seeing ourselves reflected in glory, in horror, in complete critique, is important.

California Schemin’ is available to buy and rent from digital platforms now and available to own on Blu-ray and DVD from 6 July