James McAvoy Says Directing Is Rewarding After 30 Years of Acting (Exclusive)

James McAvoy hopes his cast and crew consider him a nurturing director.

The actor makes his directorial debut with California Schemin’, which enjoyed its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

During an interview on Sunday, Sept. 7, inside the PEOPLE/EW and Shutterstock studio at TIFF, McAvoy, 46, admitted the job was “stressful” but “amazing.” He adds with a smile, “It’s the most creative thing I’ve ever done.”

“I’ve loved telling stories as an actor for 30 years. It’s an extension of that. I now love telling stories as a director because I get more tools with which to tell those stories. It was a privilege.”

Given his decades of experience in front of the camera, did McAvoy — who is known for roles ranging from X-Men to Atonement to Narnia and beyond — approach directing with ways he would not treat his cast?

“Look, I probably fell into all the same traps as every director that I’ve gone like, ‘Dude, what are you doing? Just direct me right.’ There is no ‘right,’ ” he says. “I thought I would have a shorthand with actors after 30 years, and I did to an extent.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

He adds, “I want them to give me them. And you can’t tell somebody how to be them. Yeah, they’re playing a character, but really what I want is them — bare, open, vulnerable as a performer and as a person so the audience can see inside them. You can’t direct them to that. So you’ve gotta make the space to let them become that.”

Based on a true story, California Schemin’ is about two Scottish men who pretend to be Americans in order to become hip-hop stars. The cast includes Séamus McLean Ross, Samuel Bottomley, Lucy Halliday and Rebekah Murrell.

McAvoy says he wanted to make the actors, some of whom were relatively new to the screen, “feel loved and appreciated” during filming and after. On day one, he told them: “You are here because I wanted you. You are enough. You are everything that I need, and everything that this film needs is in you. You just have to get the nonsense out of the way.”

The star says he had been waiting for a project to direct that made him go “this is the one,” which didn’t happen until California Schemin’ came across his desk.

“I realized I needed to tell a story about a hometown that felt like my hometown, an economic background that felt similar to mine,” McAvoy says. “People who had a lack of opportunities like the people in my neighborhood had, who had very confined, close horizons that you couldn’t physically get out of. But art can get you beyond them.”

He continues, “I wanted to tell stories about all those kinds of things. … People in these communities are also aspirational, also have dreams, also have talent. They might not have the opportunity ’cause it’s not given to them the way it is to other people.”