California Schemin' Overview

Gavin Bain (Séamus McLean Ross) and Billy Boyd (Samuel Bottomley), two lifelong friends from Dundee, dream of hip-hop superstardom. There’s just one problem: nobody takes two white guys with thick regional accents seriously in the UK’s early 2000s rap scene, especially not the London gatekeepers who laugh them out of an audition.

Back home and humiliated, the pair hatch a plan so absurd it just might work: they reinvent themselves as hard-partying MCs from Southern California complete with fake backstories and convincing-enough American accents. Against all odds they take off, conning even one of the industry’s top producers (James McAvoy). But keeping up the lie without losing sight of what’s real becomes harder as the stakes rise, and as cracks beneath the bravado and between friends begin to widen.

Based on the memoir "California Schemin': How Two Lads from Scotland Conned the Music Industry" by Gavin Bain.

Showtimes