James McAvoy Reportedly Assaulted in Bar Incident

Sounds like somebody at the Toronto International Film Festival isn’t the biggest fan of James McAvoy.

The X-Men: First Class actor was set to premiere his directional debut California Schemin’ at this year’s TIFF, and grabbed a drink at a bar just two blocks from the festival on Monday night. While at the bar, a heavily intoxicated man came up and sucker punched McAvoy.

The man had been previously asked to leave the bar and his punch “caught [McAvoy] off guard,” according to a report by Entertainment Weekly. Sources say McAvoy had not spoken to the man, nor did he provoke the attack in any way. It occurred near 11:55 pm at local watering hole Charlotte’s Room. The man was later escorted out.

The Scottish actor has never directed a film until California Schemin’, a film about two young men who leave Scotland to pursue their hip-hop dreams in America. Séamus McLean Ross, Samuel Bottomley, Lucy Halliday, Rebekah Murrell, and McAvoy himself star in the film.

He described the film as “the most creative thing I’ve ever done” in an interview with PEOPLE, and said he loves “telling stories as a director because I get more tools with which to tell those stories. It was a privilege.”

“Look, I probably fell into all the same traps as every director that I’ve gone like, ‘Dude, what are you doing? Just direct me right.’ There is no ‘right,’” he said. “I thought I would have a shorthand with actors after 30 years, and I did to an extent.”