You don't necessarily think of McAvoy as a quirky character actor type, but he spoke a lot about his love of like, ACTING-acting. Roles with plenty of tonal shifts, where he gets to take big emotional swings, which explains projects like Split, Speak No Evil, etc.

He was also v complimentary toward M. Night Shyamalan's famously well-organized process as a director. Said MNS was the one filmmaker he'd worked with where you knew exactly what you were getting from script to set to screen. (Actors often have no idea how projects will turn out after editing etc.)

McAvoy singled out two projects where he either had no idea how they'd turn out while filming, or they changed drastically in post-production. One was The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (initially meant to be two films, which the distributor edited into one), and the other was X-Men: First Class.

It sounds like McAvoy basically did X-Men for the money, after 8 months of paternity leave with no work lined up. Took the role based on a half-finished script, and (reading between the lines) wasn't hugely optimistic about the outcome while filming. But he ended up loving the final product.

He told a v funny lil anecdote about seeing that first X-Men movie, then phoning up Fassbender like, "It's great! You should actually watch it!" and Fessbender being like "What!?"

This event was for the Glasgow hometown crowd, and his comments about classism in the film industry were very familiar. Including the fact that when he announced that he wanted to direct a film, he apparently just got sent dozens of depressing scripts set on Scottish council estates.

The majority of scottish indie movies always seem to be gritty realist dramas, so I really gelled with his desire to tell a story designed to entertain. (His directorial debut is a dramedy about a real pair of Scottish rappers who scammed their way into the US music industry.)

I'm editorializing here, but one of the many problems with Britain's classist/racist film industry is that if a marginalized storyteller DOES manage to get in the room, they're ushered toward grounded/"relatable" projects while posh people get more freedom to explore a range of genres and tones.

Unrelated, but apparently McAvoy was driving Forrest Whittaker around in Last King of Scotland (AND played a car thief) without a driver's license because nobody ever checked lol.