James McAvoy’s Directorial Debut California Schemin’: True Story, Cast Interview & Review

09 April, 2026Alex Leptos

James McAvoy is perhaps best known as the young Charles Xavier of the cinematic X-Men universe- rubbing shoulders with the likes of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, and lest we forget, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. Before he shot into Hollywood superstardom however, McAvoy began his career in his native Scotland, and Scotland is where he returns for his directorial debut, California Schemin’.

California Schemin’ is based on the fascinating true story of two young lads from Dundee- Gavin Bain, played by Séamus McLean Ross, (Outlander: Blood of My Blood) and Billy Boyd, played by Samuel Bottomley (Anemone, How to Have Sex)- who masqueraded as California rappers Silibil N' Brains in order to be taken seriously in the music industry. The pair had the musical talent, but after being branded by talent scouts as simply “the rapping Proclaimers”, they knew they had to take matters into their own hands.

With excellent performances by its young stars and original music by the real-life Silibil N' Brains, California Schemin’ is a fun but deeply emotional story about dream-chasing and the dangerous side of relentless ambition.

When we asked its stars Samuel Bottomley, Séamus McLean Ross and Lucy Halliday (The Testaments) how they would describe the film, they framed it as almost Robin Hood-esque- about “taking from the rich” and “taking the world into their own hands that’s inaccessible to them.” As McLean Ross put it- at its core, the film is about feeling that “[there is not] a world for you that exists,” and so being forced to operate within, or against, those boundaries.

That idea of asking versus taking is central. Bottomley recalled the famous line in 1954’s An Inspector Calls- “It’s better to ask for the world than to take it”- noting that in this case, they had asked for the world and were denied it, and so felt they had no choice but to take it.

Find our full interview at the bottom of this page!

It is an almost too-absurd-to-not-be-fiction story of deception driven by raw ambition, but the film leans into that absurdity rather than away from it. Largely faithful to the real-life events, there are a few expected creative liberties with timelines and heightening personal drama, but if you wanted the raw story, the 2013 documentary film The Great Hip Hop Hoax has you covered.

California Schemin’ follows Gavin (Séamus McLean Ross) and Billy (Samuel Bottomley) as they form a faux-American hip-hop duo, get offered record deals in London, become local sensations, appear on MTV and tour with D12 and Eminem.

As the cast noted, the comedy and darker elements go hand-in-hand, each feeding the other. What begins as a relatively light-hearted act of reinvention gradually becomes something more consuming, as the fantasy the pair construct starts to take on a life of its own. Their differing outlook on their newfound fame causes friction, with Gavin, initially apprehensive of the whole situation, becoming the one most consumed by it. Meanwhile Billy struggles to keep it up, whilst his girlfriend Mary (Lucy Halliday) is worried back home.

For McLean Ross, Gavin is a character defined by that tension between vision and validation- someone who “had this world in his head but can’t quite get others to see or believe it yet.” When that vision finally manifests, however, “he’s the orchestrator, he’s fully in charge,” and crucially, people are finally seeing what he always believed was possible. That shift- control turning into excess- is where the film finds much of its bite.

The film also offers a commentary on the cut-throat nature of the music industry, and the barriers faced by young people without access or connections. As Lucy Halliday, who is from Scotland, noted: there remains a “lack of access for a lot of people,” something she feels closely parallels the film’s narrative. That sense of exclusion- of talent not being enough on its own- sits at the heart of the story.

It’s something that clearly resonated with James McAvoy as well. He noted that many of the projects offered to him as a director were rooted in working-class Scottish council estates- backgrounds similar to his own. While that might suggest authenticity, it also came with a sense of limitation. In his director’s statement, he reflected that while creatives are often told to “write what they know,” there can be assumptions about what stories they should be telling.

He said that California Shemin’ did in fact give him the opportunity to tell a story about people from a background like his, but ones that were, like him as a first-time director, desiring to transcend their limited horizons. In that sense, McAvoy saw something of himself in Gavin and Billy- people pushing beyond the boundaries set for them, even if that means bending the rules to get there.

California Schemin’ ultimately becomes a story about breaking the glass ceiling- or perhaps bypassing it entirely. And as McAvoy puts it, it is the “emotional depth of real-life consequences that gives the story its weight, allowing it to resonate beyond just the sheer fun of the swindle.”