James McAvoy can laugh about being randomly punched in a Toronto bar now. In the moment, his first reaction was considerably less calm.
The actor revisited the encounter on the October 8 episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The incident happened at Charlotte’s Room on September 8, 2025, PEOPLE reported at the time. McAvoy was in Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival, where California Schemin’ had premiered two days earlier.
He had been celebrating the sale of that film, his feature directorial debut, with two of its producers. They were having a final drink together after what he described as roughly six days at the festival, the longest he had ever spent at one.
His Producers Grabbed Him as He Tried to Fight Back
McAvoy said a patron who had drunk too much was being escorted out by a bouncer. With his back to the man, he did not see the blow coming. For an instant afterward, he looked toward the producers on either side of him, trying to work out who had hit him.
When he spotted the stranger heading out, McAvoy’s confusion turned to anger. “I went flying for the guy,” he recalled. His companions grabbed him, giving him enough time to think about getting home to London and seeing his wife and children. He said he calmed down almost immediately, realizing that becoming involved with the police could keep him from leaving.
McAvoy Answered the Stranger With a Shout-Out to Drumchapel
The stranger turned around, saw McAvoy being restrained and approached him again, the actor said. Then came a challenge that McAvoy remembered finding ridiculous: “I’m from Mexico!” Almost simultaneously, he answered, “Well, I’m from Drumchapel!”
Drumchapel is the Glasgow neighborhood where McAvoy grew up. Meyers picked up on the specificity of naming a neighborhood, while McAvoy joked about where such an exchange might go next: ZIP codes and full mailing addresses.
McAvoy ultimately stayed at the bar, according to PEOPLE’s original account. Toronto police told Global News in September 2025 that no report had been filed.
McAvoy Had Wanted to Direct Since He Was 16
California Schemin’ follows Scottish rappers Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who posed as Americans after struggling to get the music industry to take them seriously. Séamus McLean Ross plays Bain, and Samuel Bottomley plays Boyd, the real-life duo known as Silibil N’ Brains.
In an interview with UPI published October 8, McAvoy said he had been thinking about camera placement since his first movie as a teenager. Acting kept him occupied for roughly three decades. “I should’ve done it earlier, I think,” he said.
At the film’s London premiere in April, he told ITV News that he had been looking for a story about people from lower-income backgrounds like his own. He wanted an entertaining, adventurous film about people from council estates, rather than another grim social drama.
McAvoy had not originally intended to appear in the movie. He told UPI that a financing offer came with the requirement that he take a role, and he plays Anthony, the music executive who signs the pair. The musicians also contributed: Bain helped record the lead actors’ tracks, while Boyd wrote some of Bottomley’s freestyle rap.
The film opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 9, with wider releases scheduled for October 16 and 23, according to Moviefone.