James McAvoy on California Schemin'

Guys this is a this is kind of weird. Is it weird to you guys a lot? Here's what's weird for me when I was in college a girl I dated We saw atonement together, and I think we both realized we weren't for each other because I fell in love with Karen Ily and she fell in love with you and we Drew like drawings for each other We were weird artsy kids and I drew a drawing of you from atonement for her very weird time in my life Very weird to be talking to you right now my natural curiosity just means I want to see the picture It's like a full shot of you in your like Dunkirk army gear. Maybe she still has it. I don't know I hope so we don't stay in touch But anyway Speak And Hello dear listeners and welcome back to a special bonus episode of Your favorite podcast will stop what went wrong a podcast that just so happens to be about movies now It's nearly impossible to make them let alone a good one let alone your first movie let alone the first movie You've made as a listener of what went wrong. That's right. We are talking to yeah, cuz that's the most important Fire it's the most important decision our guest has ever made We are talking to the incredible actor director producer James McAvoy James Thank you so much for listening to the show and thank you for being here today to talk about your incredible directorial debut California scheming a movie that I watched and loved and then also was like Come on. He's good-looking. He's a great director. He's a great actor like this kind of in a Hollywood's Contracting there are not a lot of directing jobs around and here comes this new new guy taking my directing jobs It's it's an incredible accomplishment. We're so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us Thank you so much for having me guys I am a massive fan of the the pod as people sometimes call it I always feel it's slightly reductive. So I'm gonna call it a podcast and Yeah, I've been listening to you guys for ever since I started editing California scheming and I just needed something to get me out of the movie and out of my head about movies and my editor Joe Sawyer was like you need to listen to more movie stuff and He put me on you guys and I I like railed through you guys cycling to and from work every day I just went through everything. Yeah, I love it. I think you guys are great I appreciate it. I'm thrilled to hear that. I'm also terrified because I I'm always like Do the people that we're talking about listen to this podcast Obviously, we haven't covered you at all yet or anything you've done But it is an honor and I'm gonna out you James as one of our full stop supporters Yeah, no, I'm just like I saw I just love what you guys did so much. It's like I'm going to sport I'm going to sport. That's it. That's it. I'm doing it and a fit of Economic an economic flourish. I decided to come a full stop support. Well, you're the best We we really appreciate it, but we are very excited to talk about California scheming. We got to watch it We both really loved it. We immediately texted each other afterwards and we're like, it's so good Thank you. You're awkward, right? If you don't like it and I'm like coming on the show Well, the first thing we Texas was thank God. It's good because It would have been like so the lighting is great Dude we got a Distributor that I had worked with in the past on a movie like ten years ago Who really wanted to do California scheming? like a year before we started shooting wanted to put in Money up front and be the UK distributor And real good like got the story was well into it Anyway, we didn't end up going with them because we got we got more we got offered a bigger fee from studio canal UK Who've been incredible and great collaborators? But I was doing my I was going through the edit and we were I screened it an incredible amount of times to colleagues and people in the industry and Kind of didn't really care in the last time we were two days out from the edit closing Locking it and I thought I just need to show it to as many people as possible And we didn't have time to fill it with non-industry people So I was like anybody, you know, and it was like it was crazy. It was James Samuel. It was actors It was Sharon Horrigan. Yes, it was like Trudy Styler was there. Oh my god It was like industry people who have won awards and shit Anyway, yeah, he came the guy who wanted to be in bit couldn't come in anyway He watched it. I'm two days out of the edit and two days out of locking it And we go we need you go and have a cup of tea with them afterwards We have it sit down have a cup of tea and go what do you think? Yeah? Yeah, there's um, there's a film in there film in there Two days left in the edit. Oh, yeah No, I know you're like you're kind of going I think there's personal stuff here Yeah, and we luckily we tested the film up to the wazoo and we were scored and really high new audiences Laughed all the right points cried all the right points and so we were like we knew it worked But I was like, ooh, it was exactly what you're saying. So the lighting Wow, but before we get too deep into it Can you give listeners just the log line of what California scheming is about? Oh, yeah Because I guess we don't have an IMDB log line yet. Do we let me see because I have your page up here Oh, you do you do have a Okay, we're gonna do the thing you go through the IMDB As always as always here's the IMDB log line to Scottish lads from Dundee con the music industry by pretending to be an established Californian rap duo bagging a record deal and appearing on MTV until their scam unraveled Yeah, yeah, pretty good. So basically you get two extremely talented Scottish rappers, right and That just makes people laugh outside of Scotland I'm not saying that still happens I'm not saying it would happen today, but I don't see many Scottish rappers kicking it in the charts at the moment And they went down to London. They did a big huge open edition for a major record label who shall remain nameless And they got laughed out of the room. They asked like what do you want? They were like basically listed off a bunch of American rappers and they went cool, we'll do that and They re-recorded all their music in American accents and then the same record label gave them a deal Just for simply changing their accents and pretending to be an established rap duo They created a whole backstory about No, and D12 no an Eminem and all that who they then later had to support Yeah live on stage and they styled it out really It sounds like a kind of great success story about two people trying to try to game the system It's it's also a story about integrity and authenticity The lifeblood of hip-hop music as well it might add as well as just something that we all need to walk through our lives with and And they paid a price and I think you know to get where you want to get in life You can sacrifice whatever you want But you're gonna have to look at yourself in the middle of one day and pay the bill And you might not have enough change in your pocket to do that and these guys Didn't and they pay a pretty hefty price because of it, but yeah, that's ultimately the story Well, it's set up so effectively the way that you guys have crafted it so they arc from like Scottish pride to internalizing the You know sort of shame that seems to be projected on them from the industry at the end and they and I loved that the way that the two Characters Gavin and Billy kind of orbit around one another by by the end of the film and they reverse Positions in a lot of ways and we talk a lot on the show about this You know idea that like your your flaws are your style, right? The thing that other people perceive, you know, we'll hold you back We'll actually be the thing when you do succeed that makes you distinct from everybody else and like what you're talking about with what they sacrifice I love how by the end it's pointed out by by Tessa their their manager that they yeah They've given up the one thing that actually would have set them apart that gave them their voice to begin with and made them different from D12 or the Beastie Boys or you know, I mean whoever that they were like sort of emulating at the time and it is so tragic I have to say that was one of my favorite scenes in The entire movie and I really loved Rebecca Merle who plays So good and I was just so struck by that moment Especially to have that character be a woman and to be a woman of color I thought was really brilliant because something this movie does so well is it shows the collateral damage of them, you know making this decision to Essentially fake it and and she is kind of that collateral damage and it hit me so hard when she's like you did one audition Like you did one audition and you thought that they should pick you based on one audition and it's just You know, you didn't have to change yourself you could have kept trying you could have kept pushing Really loved it. It's a lovely tight hour and 45 minutes. So first of all, thank you for that Listen man, my whole purpose for making a film was basically to try and increase the quota of 90 minute movies that get made and That was my initial thing. I wanted to be 90 minutes. My my directors cut my first pass Whatever many weeks six weeks or something that was 89 minutes and I was like nailed it, right? and my editor and I Joe were like nailed it, right and And then we showed it to like 12 people and they were all like Oh Shit we need to slow it down and I've literally there's only one scene that I shot that isn't in the movie and even that is in the movie I just play it MOS and Yeah, it ended up being an hour and 45, but yeah, I wanted to make it tight and have momentum and I wanted it to be a movie I'm making an independent movie independent cinema in a part of the world that usually is about Unemployment and drug abuse and I don't know council states and things like that which is where I'm from and from these schemes these council schemes or projects as you guys call them and You just don't usually get to make a movie whatever the semantics behind movie as opposed to film or I wanted to make a movie and For that I had to have a momentum and I had to be not too long So yeah, we did a lot of work in developing the script. It has great momentum Yes, it does and it's a great point that you know, we talk about which is Sometimes you cut it so short that actually feels longer, you know, like you need a pace that people can understand and sit in and enjoy and you Very clearly established that with this movie. It just hums along kudos to your editor What was it? It's part of my problem as a director as a first-time director is I finally got to do what I like as an actor which is Pick up your cues if you know what I mean by that like not too much pausey acting not too much Breathing in between the lines really really make it snappy Because I think sometimes when you leave space between the lines Which you are often asked to do as an actor so that the space to edit and the sound is protected You lose energy between the actors, which is ultimately what you're trying to capture You're trying to capture the magic that is in the space between the two people The thing that you both create together and sometimes you get in the way the momentum Line-to-line beat-to-beat and you mess up. Anyway, I was like come on guys like rapid rapid like Riff off each other riff off each other and then I get a film that's running too quick And I'm like, oh god, we need to slow it down and then the editor was looking at me going like You directed them to be really fast. There's not a lot of breathing space Even in the material that we have to edit with so we really had to get creative and mine Stuff from bad takes and takes where the camera wasn't good and my DP James Rhoads He did an amazing job great background and in live musical performance photography, which makes sense for this movie Yeah, right He has not thanked me a couple of times for some of these shots You took that take it was like that's the one it's the longest like literally just trying to stretch the film at times Because it was playing so fast. It felt slow that you say Chris Can you walk us through? Like how you found this project and how you knew that this was the one that you wanted to make your directorial debut with Um, I wasn't necessarily certain that I needed to make a Scottish film as my first I was pretty sure I wanted to make an entertaining movie about people from lower lower income backgrounds whatever that was in the world and When I said I wanted to be a director I was in the very fortunate position as an actor of you know Some success over the last 30 years that when I said I wanted to be a director I got offered scripts and that's a really privileged position to be in I'm aware However, as an actor who's only played four or five Scottish roles. I it was interesting to me that the scripts I got offered where kind of poverty porn about Working-class Scottish council estates and I was like I definitely want to make them about people in that position but my life growing up in a council estate or a scheme was full of possibility and adventure and big sky like huge sky and epic battle and standoff and peril and flight and terror and sex I grew up in the teen I know I know a movie I grew up in the teenage pregnancy capital of Europe so and And then I get these scripts that are about you know abuse domestic drug Alcohol physical sexual and it's just like And then I finally got this and it was also about It was a it was a chance to entertain as well as being about the social realities of what it's like to be from somewhere like that Without ignoring it It's still tried to grab the audience and make them laugh and make them smile and make them dream and then at the same time Honoured the fact that it ended pretty bad Yeah, I mean if anything it's so illustrative of I think what some of those other movies were maybe trying to convey without being a bummer necessarily because the fact that all they had to change to get the record contract was their accent should really tell you everything you Need to know about you know The way that that culture I mean obviously we're American But I'm assuming the way that that culture was sort of viewed by other parts of the UK at least I mean I would say It might I'm not here to complain because I don't think it's it helps and instead I made a movie That was that makes people laugh and hopefully Shows light on what is actually happening the reason I put the big mural of Train spotting in the movie. Yes, we're gonna because yeah, not just because of the kind of iconic line That the rent and says and that what he says it's shy being Scottish It was to make people remember that like it's 30 years since that film was made and potentially the best Scottish film ever made right I think it's an incredible work of art and entertaining and it's a movie it's not just a film. It's a movie and What have we had since then and it's a country of six million people like I know we're not like 250 like you guys But like six million people who should have made more than a handful of movies in that time Thank God for I swear last year. I made a film with John S. Bird called Filth bit 13 years ago There's been other stuff in between and I'm not just saying that that's all we got But people say to me like I know it's terrible how it used to be and I go like name me five Scottish movies in the last five years And you go that's a whole and it's not just a problem for Scotland. This is a problem for all regions of Great Britain outside of the certain parts of society that are allowed to have stories told about them and it's the same story all the world over Certain regions and certain echelons of society are allowed to have stories told about them and the rest kind of Maybe because there's a doubt over recruitment at the box office Don't get the opportunity and art is here not just for recruitment art is here so that we human beings can have an experience Reflected and we can see ourselves and so all parts of society need to be reflected and that's all colors all genders all creeds all sexualities all everybody and And it's just really sad that you you walk into your room with the same song But with a different accent and you get a record deal But you walk into the room with your own accent with the same song and you get laughed out the room Yeah, that just illustrates it right there You know so not try to complain about it because I don't think it's it's it helps the situation but Yeah, I have to ask you about that you and McGregor mural. I have I had several questions about it First of all, it was a strong it was a bold choice. It's I love it as soon as I saw it I was locked into this movie. Does does he know has he seen the movie does he know that it's in it? He I don't think he's seen the film He was on the Graham Norton show and Graham said like oh you've popped up in Glasgow Do you know this mural and he looks at the mural on the Graham Norton show and was like oh wow That's amazing. I don't think anybody realized that we had put it there. Yeah, and it was I was looking for something Illustrated something culturally significant about Scotland that everybody can recognize and then that we could later reveal was I had a negative connotation when the boss moves away, yeah, and It was quite a bold move in that I'm in my directorial debut in the first two minutes the film I'm making the audience remember the greatest Scottish film ever made Yeah quite a treacherous move here self-sabotage. It's why I removed the Casablanca references from the first movie We got as so the casting like it's been said anywhere from what I don't know 75% to 90% of casting depending on who you asked 90% of a director's job is casting right like your cast is your movie and your cast is Amazing in this movie pitch perfect, right? And there's a god. They look so much like them to when you show the real footage at the end I was like oh my god. I didn't realize I had seen Samuel bottomly before Yeah, and way back in Tyrannosaur from like 2011 which I forgot about but that's a great film It's an amazing movie you guys should go see it. He is so good. I really was blown away Can you tell us a little bit about the search like what how did you feel when you found? I mean, I can't imagine like these are real people that you're basing this on as we mentioned You show footage at the end of the film. They look like them. They are great performers. They I love their accent like the American Code switching is crazy. Yeah, so how did you find it? What was that process like? It was it was an interesting process It was quite long week. We started casting quite early because you know said this quite a few times If we were making this film a bit to kids in Albuquerque or something that Doing something similar I'd have a plethora of young actors who'd led movies and probably could finance a movie. It's a certain level anyway Because my country doesn't produce movies I'm looking for complete unknowns people who've done hardly any work at that age group, you know Shame is this was he hadn't done a professional gig but when I hired him He had done one after by the time we made the movie he'd done one gig Lucy had done one gig Sam had been working since he was like five years old and We started early we saw a lot of people Saw a ton of people and we did a lot of chemistry cast and switching actors with that cuz ultimately There's four distinct main characters in the film But the film really follows a relationship The stakes of the film are a relationship and whether the relationship makes it or not whether they get caught or not It doesn't really matter. It's whether the relationship will make it or not. So chemistry was more important than individual actor Being great. I got lucky in that the first person I ever auditioned in my life as a director was Samuel Botterley Wow I was like and he came in with the chin strap Like Billy so much but also He's the first person I saw Billy was the most difficult part to cast Because well Gavin's role is more troubled and I guess there's more handholds for an actor to get into the role of Gavin He's getting more in our turmoil. He's getting more Isms he's getting more this that and the next thing going on Actors came in knowing what to do with that role It was really about who's who's the best at executing it and Seamus was unbelievable Billy has to be happy Billy has to be capable of happiness and Billy has to be relaxed Billy's got to be a movie star and You can't you can't you can't action that you can't check off that you can't unit beats and ejected that you can't learn that You can't technique that you can't act that you just got to be that and and Sam's just like chill his fuck and so cool and capable of being authentically himself and so He was the first person I saw and I thought if I can get him in the film with Seamus and their chemistry works We're gonna be great, but we didn't know that that was gonna work. So we did a whole big mix up Lots of different actors with lots of different people Seamus made everybody else better Sam made everybody else better when they worked with them. They lifted people up around them There was lots of people who are really good just not like necessarily right and then I put them both together And they kind of cancelled each other out and they were both really shit for the first For the first take and I was like These are my guys these are the ones that I know can bring it home and they're not doing it And they were just too busy watching each other Because they both like game recognized game or something like that you know and then I was like, okay, what I do and I went I guess what we do is we go again Yeah, that's what we do. We'll go again. You know the classic the brilliant idea director intervenes. We'll go again So we went again Yeah, no, no, it was it's perfect. Let's go again and They just got out of their own way. They stopped looking at each other They stop admiring each other and they just played and they were brilliant. They were so so good But the weird thing is that like it's the same as true with Lucy as well. Lucy who plays Mary? She's the first tape I saw for anyone She just happened to be the first in line of all the tapes that I saw and we saw her twice in person as well But I was like, it's her it's gonna be yeah, she's really lovely I don't know if that's just like bias because it's the first person I saw but she is exceptional She's really good and she's a she's brilliant in the Testaments as well And so yeah, and actually I said Billy was the hardest part to cast Tessa was the hardest part to cast actually Because Tessa was the only role that we invented a Tessa was originally a sort of antagonist She was one of the managers from the label who was like on to them and trying to figure them out She took against their kind of juvenile chauvinism and juvenile sort of misogynistic kind of humor at times And quite rightly so and sniff the rat and she kind of went after them and she was exposing them and looking for their passports and all that There's like it doesn't did the threat in the drama of are they gonna get caught or not? I'm just not interested in it's just a relationship and whether it makes a difference So I was like so what happens to that character of Amy? And I was like she should be an ally who's also getting screwed over and also a Representative of the culture that they've appropriated And so I was like great. I've nailed it I've written a great part and it's really responsible because I'm like we've got a movie about two white guys that are appropriating black music and And here I have somebody from the black community who's Like a supporter of and lover of that culture who's also getting fucked over that makes sense great We've written a really good part and then nobody could every actor we saw was just like nobody gets this What is going on to the point where I was like talking to the writer Elaine? Gracie who's amazing and gone have we written a shit part a? Couple of people could do it, but they were too old or they were the wrong age or the wrong kind of chemistry And then finally Rebecca came in and just smashed it at the park and we were really really lucky So casting was long But ultimately ended up going for pretty much The first instinct and I don't know if that's a lesson for the future or not Well, maybe you learn to trust yourself right because it's your first time so you're thinking like No way I nailed it on the first tape and then now going forward you can just say yeah We know that on the first day tell you what though. I don't know how you feel But like sometimes I've definitely felt this is an actor auditioning for directors. I'm being used to help you figure out Whether this is a good scene or not. Yeah, I'm like well this scene doesn't work Yeah, totally like we workshopped a lot of the script Yes, turns out that line is unsayable So I'm gonna cut it from my stupid movie. Yeah No, it's important it is like as a director I think one of the most important things you can do is look to your cast and say like they're smart They're very good at what they do. Have I given them an impossible task? Basically, yeah, and on that really quickly you've worked with an incredible array of directors And so coming to your first movie was there anything that you brought here where you thought man I loved what this director did you don't have to name names Or you know, I I really don't want to do what this director did. Please name names. Um, no, I'm kidding. I will I will I've absolutely ripped off John Baird and Danny Boyle with the kind of sort of unfeasible enthusiasm and energy projection even when you don't feel it and you know, they don't feel it all the time But they commit even when the crew and the cast are looking you're gonna like I know you're not feeling this right now You really appreciate The commitment and the effort, you know, and I love that about them. I also I think they've done incredible work Just that I would be lucky to emulate as well, but I've not tried to emulate their style or anything But that was something Joe Wright who I did a moment with that we talked about before we started recording Chris Which is an interesting conversation that we might have to include Um, I think we do Joe Wright did something that no director I've ever worked with before or since has ever done And I did this every day on every scene Because it really galvanized for me the crew and and welcomed in the crew in a way that they don't always get which was They rehearse it with the actors and then you welcome the crew in for the crew show And we let them see it And then you go, all right, this is what the scene is to me the scene is to me uh connection it's um, it's It's funny at this bit They have a moment of something's beautiful and intangible and we don't know whether it's going left or right And then we undercut it with a bit of humor or it's a bit of tragedy or whatever I want the audience to feel this and I want it to be snappy snappy snappy or I want it to be breathy breathy breathy We're gonna do this this this this and if we get time we'll do this, right? That's what we're all doing guys ready Break and it's like everybody just suddenly goes. I feel like a filmmaker today because there's so much Like chain of command sometimes on a film set that stops People feeling like the part of it that term hurry up and wait Everybody's like hurrying up to wait for their moment where they have to come in And I've been on films where the the crew haven't even got the script. They've not even read the script Not because they haven't chose to read it. They've not been giving it And all right, maybe hod's have or something like that But yeah, so that was something that I've chosen to do and rip off from him I'd love to hear what the crew that I worked with said about this. They might be like, yeah, we don't need that one Yeah, that was a real drag like we just wanted to get you know get a cup of tea, you know that Um, and then the other person that I completely ripped off was Jamie Lloyd. I don't know if you're aware of Jamie Lloyd's work He's a theater director sort of was the on-front to Riebla. I think he's probably slightly too old to be called that anymore um terrible infant in french for anybody who doesn't speak french. I don't but I know that I mean and um I've been working with him for about 17 years And he's probably the most significant director-actor relationship I've ever had Watching him change as a director and refine his process Like he's doing less and less and less over the years not just for me because he's working me loads I've become more experienced but with all the cast He's doing less in terms of acute minute direction, but he's doing so much in empowering the performer And making you as a performer feel like You are more important to me than the character As long as the story is being told. I don't care whether your your characterization has the right limp or the right Funny walk and the patch and whatever the face like i'm here for The audience are here for the performer Telling them the story because that's what we are. We're not actors. We're not this This is my thing and forgive me if anybody discrees me You're totally allowed to do your own thing and it's cool. But we're not filmmakers. We're not dps We're not boom operators. We're not actors. We're not hair and makeup department. We're not any of these things we are all storytellers and Sometimes the craft becomes the end goal Sometimes cinema becomes the end goal. I'm here to make good cinema. You know, you know, you're here to tell the story well and What I loved about what jaymie has done with me and many casts that I've worked with him is that when we walk on stage We feel like we are enough And we are empowered and whatever we bring from our lives is what we are going to fire out Through that on stage with him I tried to do that with my cast as well and for a young cast Two of which were massively inexperienced. I think that really helped. So yeah, I would name check everybody I've stolen from Before we let you go the last thing we have to ask you of course is What went wrong if there was one thing you could share? I know I'm sure I know we're at it. We're close on time, but please what went wrong man um so I can't oh man, we had some pretty major major major stuff go wrong very early on and um I actually can't talk about it because it might be litigious and all that stuff. So it's it's really one day Years from now. I will come back and tell you all about it. It is pretty wild It is pretty wild and the fact that we have this movie the wild west The the the dodge city of making independent cinema in great britain in scotland where roughly five films get made every 50 years is Is Incredible that this film exists. Um, what went wrong? Um, there was one tiny scene in the film where it said Shameless character Gavin Skateboards and like stacks it and hurt himself, right? We've got that scene in the film And I was like, do you know what like he's a hip hop guy? He's a skater guy skater culture. He should be skateboarding. So I was like, shameless Do you think you can get skateboarding? Uh and take some lessons and stuff and I will pay for it and all that He gets to set he gets the you know, bait or like the production office three weeks before we start shooting I'm like, so how's those skateboarding lessons being gone? He's like, oh, no, I've not been doing them man all right, so I like got them in there got them in a skate community and I got them going right and But I only needed shameless doing it. Samuel bottom that goes out what he's skateboarding in the film and I was like, yeah Yeah, he's like, well, I'm skateboarding in the film then He's like, ah, I'm slightly worried. We're a low budget independent movie They bond the insurance company like they're not gonna like this. No, he's like, I'm skateboarding in the film like, all right, big man No problem. You go skateboarding. So great. They both get hard at it They're really making great progress and a week and a half before the movie gets started before we roll Uh, Sam breaks his elbow No, we have it on film we have it. They were filming each other on iPhones and so we have it documented Um, the moment that he broke his elbow and we were like, oh god, so that happened. So the only time you see Sam Um skateboarding in the film is like the four days that we shot in London at the very end we shot almost entirely in Glasgow and none of the film is set in Glasgow It's all set in Dundee or London Um, and that was the last little bit that he was able to skateboard you you shot at the barrel lands, right? Yeah, I mean where the boys actually supported M&M and D12 was the brickson academy in London So we were running around Glasgow looking for a place that could double as a brickson academy And ultimately we got to the barrel lands which cannot double as a brickson academy because it's so unique and so strange looking It's got this big curved ceiling and we're just like this is somewhere that D12 also played and we're like, well Why don't we have them just come here instead? Yeah, um And we were able to fill it with 2000 people Wow, which is amazing. We couldn't pay them to come because that was going to cost us like 350 400 grand Which we just didn't have so we managed to put on a real gig Yeah with a real band and we got them to come in naughty sort of um hit hop skater boy outfits and um We said come for the real gig 90 minutes of naughty's bangers And stay for like two takes of our boys They stayed the Glasgow crowd all 2000 of them stayed for like two hours And let me direct them and like they were amazing. They were amazing. I'm kidding. I thought they were thrilled Oh, it was amazing. It was like such a buzz the um, there's a thing in Glasgow Where a gig if they like you they will chant here. We hear we hear we fucking go here. We hear we here We fucking go chapel ron famously had one where they adapted it for And um when they did that for us unprompted I was like, uh, it's not accurate It wouldn't be back then it's only started in the last like 10 15 years But I was like that's got to go in the film. That's such a slice of where I'm from It's got to go in the film So we did that but the music in general and all the photography for the music was like a real Like I say like I I'm not I'm weirdly not a fan of musicals or biopics And I just made a musical biopic for my directorial debut And um, it wasn't until like eight weeks out in prep that I was like, I've got to make a music film how am I going to do this and um James Rhodes was exceptional at helping me Conceptualize how we go from what looked like a concert to also being inside their experience on stage as well And then the other thing about music is just trying to get the money together for the soundtrack was was ridiculous We had an amazing Composer ben rafferty. He did the substance I may destroy you. I think he did that. I may destroy you. He did dragonfly which is an amazing film I don't know if you see it with Brenda Bledton just recently and Andrea Riesbro terrifying domestic Care films you know, it's an amazing hybrid film. I just made a film with the director called faith with erin doherty Anyway, he's a very talented guy, but that guy ben rafferty put our soundtrack together in four weeks. Wow I know that's how that's how slim the budget was like that's a classic. What went wrong. The composer has no time That's the perfect you did it. You followed every tenet of the show. He was amazing he was amazing like a real gentleman genius and just like What the kind of person that the movie industry thrives on and also takes advantage of right Where it's like because you give him an impossible task and then he actually does it Yeah, the idea that the show must go on is wonderful. I live for that But i'm also abused because I live for that. Yeah, do you know, I mean we all do Yeah, if the show doesn't always have to go on but Um, this is why I could never I could never be a star because I'm always like the show the show can stop It can stop right here Yeah, like literally 99% of your crew and cast are show must go on people I know we have to let you go But is there anything else that we haven't talked about or that you'd like to mention or plug Before you get out of here. I just want to give a shout out to michael menerson at patriot pictures who When we encountered some serious issues came in and saved the day We've had lots of great partners financially, but without him at that exact moment We would have gone under like a lot of british independent films just one day two weeks into the shoot do Um, and so we're really lucky that we got this made. Thank you so much Listen as a as a fan of the podcast. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. It is weird talking to you live It's weird talking to you too. Yeah It's a two way street there. Mr. McBoy. Um, thank you so much for your time Seriously, like just fucking congratulations. Yes. It's what it thanks man It's a fucking great movie. I can't see what I'm sorry. I can't stop swearing, but I can't wait to see what you do next It's so good. What an accomplishment just seriously. Thanks you guys Congratulations and thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. We we appreciate you your art your actual financial support of our show You're the absolute best. You're a king. Yeah, don't forget guys. I paid for this. I know I thank you for making it satisfying experience. We will and we'll be buying tickets to your movie. That's right Or morose continues. We love you so much. Thank you so much James. We appreciate you Thank you guys I'm touching I'm touching cheese I'm touching you Sweet sandwich time This summer helman's mayonnaise makes sandwiches taste so good so good Ever wondered if the magic was real? 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