James McAvoy: Film industry failing working-class people

JAMES McAvoy has said the film industry "doesn't exist to provide opportunities" for working-class people during an event in Glasgow.

The Scottish actor appeared at a special In Conversation talk at the Glasgow Film Festival on Sunday, where he looked back at his career and received the Cinema City Honorary Award for his contribution to film.

During the event, McAvoy spoke about classism in the film industry – an issue he has been outspoken about before.

James McAvoy speaking at the In Conversation event (Image: NQ) We told how McAvoy, who grew up on a council estate in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow, said that he wanted his directorial debut California Schemin’ to reflect on people who “come from backgrounds where they have less opportunities”, but in a way which is “entertaining and aspirational”.

When asked how the performing arts industry needs to change to combat classism, McAvoy said: “It’s tricky, this industry doesn’t exist to provide opportunities for people.

“This industry is based on capitalism – and I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing – but the need or the duty to create a future workforce, never mind a diverse future workforce, just doesn’t seem to be something that the industry cares about or thinks about.

“The industry just goes, ‘people will come, people will be created, artists will emerge’ – and they generally do.

“Maybe we do need to lay the groundwork for people to emerge and get trained a lot more.”

‘Art is about creating well-rounded people’

McAvoy said that in terms of classism, the issue is not necessarily to do with a lack of diversity in the industry, although he said it should be diverse “because that would be representative of society”.

He said: “What we’re really missing – which the lack of diversity in the film industry is a symptom of – is a lack of educational art for all.

“Educational art, for me, isn’t even about creating artists. It’s just about creating well-rounded, capable, confident people who have been exposed to more than just the walls of their school, more than the horizons of their own neighbourhood, and more than their own borders.

(Image: PA)(Image: Robert Perry/PA Wire) “When you’ve got loads of money, you see the world and you’re given the keys to the world. But when you don’t have loads of money, how do you get this broader view that there are other horizons out there? You get it through art.”

McAvoy continued: “The other thing you get through art – specifically performance art, if you expose children to it – is you get children who are desensitised to the prospect of failure. So they will go into a room when they’re 20 and go, ‘yeah, I can get this job’, just like people from Oxbridge do.

“If you don’t have that exposure to performance and failure and being booed, or being desensitised to this sense of failure and the anticipation of failure and the deep-seated dread of failure that stops you taking a risk – how do you go and get that job as a manager in Greggs, even? It limits you so much.”

‘What you’re capable of achieving shouldn’t be restricted’

McAvoy went on to say that “everyone” should feel entitled to go after what they want, but that the opportunity is not available to everyone.

He told the audience: “You’ve got this whole sect of society who – nothing against them, brilliant, I’m glad they’re getting it – get exposed to all that, and they reap the benefits of it as adults.

“This entitlement that people talk about, there’s nothing wrong with it. Everybody should be feeling entitled, we should all feel entitled to go after what we want to go after. But we should all have that feeling.

“You can come from a background with less, but what you’re capable of achieving shouldn’t be restricted by that.

“We live in a country where we pay our taxes, and our children should be educated on a similar level to people with money as well.”