McAvoy and Wilson talk directing as TIFF looks to what's next

James McAvoy and Rebel Wilson talked directing at the Toronto Film Festival, opening up on what pulled them behind the camera.

They spoke during Variety's invite-only Future in Focus event, a session on innovation in filmmaking led by Matt Donnelly and Angelique Jackson and presented by Utopai Studios, according to Variety. Directors Rachel Morrison and Liz Garbus joined a separate conversation on barriers in the business. The event was held on Sept. 12.

For McAvoy, it was a return. He first came to Toronto 20 years ago with The Last King of Scotland. Twenty years on, he was back with two projects.

One is his first time directing a feature film, California Schemin. It follows a pair of Scottish rappers who pretend to be American to land a record deal. It reaches US theatres on Oct. 9.

The other is acting. He stars opposite Erin Doherty in Faith, a British supernatural drama directed by Paul Andrew Williams.

Morrison also arrived with a directing milestone. She brought her second film as a director, Love of Your Life, after her first film, The Fire Inside, launched at the festival in 2024.

Love of Your Life stars Margaret Qualley as Maya, an emergency-room nurse whose tangled love life sets off a journey of self-discovery. The script was written by Julia Cox.

Garbus came to Toronto as the director of Give Me the Ball! She is also co-founder of Story Syndicate, a production company behind documentary film and television.

What makes this stand out is the mix. Actors learning to direct. Directors building second acts. All in one room, talking craft rather than premieres. For fans, this means new work is close: McAvoy the director in October, and McAvoy, Qualley and Doherty in festival titles looking for their next step to screens.