'I was born and brought up in Glenrothes in Fife, so by rights I should have supported a Fife team like Raith Rovers, East Fife or Dunfermline, not an Edinburgh team like Hibs. But you support who your dad takes you to see, don't you? My dad Alan was a mad, mad Hibee. As a wee boy in Glasgow he'd been a Rangers fan but his uncle, who was a scout for Hibs, began taking him to Easter Road and that was that.

I was brought up with the great Hibs sides of the past, like the Famous Five team who won three league championships after the war. It's unbelievable now but Hibs had reached the semi-final of the first-ever European Cup in 1956. And Hibs also had a great, great team when I was growing up in the early 1970s. They were called 'Turnbull's Tornadoes' after the manager Eddie Turnbull. I grew up watching a phenomenal team that included really good players such as John Blackley, Alan Gordon, Jimmy O'Rourke and John Brownlie. They played a version of the 'total football' that the Dutch were famous for.

I pestered my dad for ages and ages to take me to a game, but he always said I was too young. Eventually he gave in and took me to see Hibs v Celtic at Easter Road in 1970 when I was five. I don't recall the score but I remember that Celtic were playing in bright yellow shirts, their away strip, and that we sat in the North Stand, what is now the Famous Five Stand. When I went to football as a wee lad aged five or six, it was magic. It was like going to a church for the first time, but with noise. It was a thing of beauty. Even now, when I walk up the steps on a Saturday afternoon and see the pitch, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I've got loads of great memories of watching Hibs, like seeing George Best make his home debut against Partick Thistle in 1979. To see Best play for any team was incredible but to see him play for Hibs was a huge thrill and very moving. Tom Hart, the Hibs chairman at the time, personally paid him £2,000-a-week out of his own pocket to play.

When I watch football, I'm lost in the game. I forget about everything else. Even if it's a rubbish game, I still love it. I love the fact that in football anything can happen. Even when you're 4-1 down with 10 minutes to go, you think: 'We could get three goals in 10 minutes.' So I'm the eternal optimist.

Football conjures up a greater range of emotions for me than what I do. Acting doesn't get me as passionate. Don't get me wrong - I love acting and I take my work incredibly seriously, and I'm an acting animal in one sense. But I'm more of a football animal - not in the hooligan sense, but in what it does to me. If I had the choice of an evening with Robert De Niro or Alex Ferguson, it would be Alex Ferguson every time. And if it was a choice between Hibs winning the Premier League or me winning an Oscar, I'd rather Hibs won the title.

In August 2001 the international premiere of Enigma in Edinburgh clashed with Rangers v Hibs. So I arrived at the cinema with Kate Winslet and Saffron Burrows, then slipped out after 15 minutes to watch the game in a boozer across the road. These Americans who had bought the film to distribute in the States went round saying: 'If that guy does that when he comes to the States, I'm going to have his ass.' It was a great game, too, a 2-2 draw. I don't know what Kate Winslet and the others thought about me bunking off to watch Hibs, and I don't care. There are some more important things in life. I had to. It was on the box and it was an important match. I went back for the party afterwards.

When I watch a game, I'm there on the pitch with the players. And when Hibs score a goal at Easter Road, I'll grab whoever's next to me. If I had to live without football or acting, it would be acting, I guess. If you took football out of my life, it would be like punching me in the guts and I'd be winded for the rest of my life. Most people who are passionate about football would say that, I think. Football's been with me since before I started acting. It's rooted in my psyche; it's part of my personality. I can chart my memories of my father and my childhood through different football matches and grounds I've been at, players I've watched and great goals I've seen.

Hibs have declined since I began watching them in the 1970s. We used to get crowds of 40,000; now it's a fraction of that. But Bobby Williamson's a good manager and with him we'll always be fighting hard for third place in the league. The trouble is, good players tend to leave for a club with more ambition or more money. Didier Agathe and Ulrik Laursen went to Celtic, Kenny Miller and Russell Latapy to Rangers and Ulises De la Cruz to Villa. That's frustrating. We've got two very talented young Scottish players, Ian Murray and Garry O'Connor, but they'll probably leave soon, too.

We need to invest - in a youth academy, proper training pitch and wages for players - to make Hibs one of the best teams in Scotland again.

My favourite player: John Brownlie

He played wing-back for Hibs in the 1970s and is one of the most graceful players I've ever seen. He was quick, elegant, wonderful at bringing the ball from defence to attack, a great crosser and beautiful passer. Tragically he got a broken leg away at East Fife in late 1972; it didn't end his career but it did take a lot away from him. I remember my dad and brother David coming back from that game crying and saying 'John Brownlie broke his leg'.

My favourite match

When Hibs beat AEK Athens 3-2 at Easter Road in the Uefa Cup in September 2001 - that was the best I'd seen them play since the 1970s. The whole team played phenomenal football. They seemed to have been overtaken by some sort of footballing spirit. The passing, movement, communication and fluidity of the football was breathtaking. All the fans were aware they were watching something they hadn't seen at Easter Road for a long time. We were 0-2 down from the first leg but Paco Luna scored twice to level it. He had a header in the last minute of normal time to win it for us, but he missed! Then, in extra time, AEK scored twice and although David Zitelli got one back, we lost 4-3 on aggregate. That night was the culmination of Alex McLeish's reign; he joined Rangers a few weeks later.'

How Dougray helped the Rangers boss and ex-Hibs hero on his big-screen debut

When Alex McLeish was manager of Hibs, I invited him to the premiere of Mission: Impossible 2 in London, even though I'd never met him. I sent off the invitation with a note, but I heard nothing back so I assumed he wasn't coming. We were all in the VIP area when my wee nephew came in and said: 'Alex McLeish is in the foyer.' Tom Cruise was there and so was Russell Crowe and Kylie Minogue, but as soon as my family heard the Hibs manager was there, they were like, 'Alex McLeish!' and went over towards him - he was much more important. Tom Cruise said: 'Who's that?' I said: 'Tom, that's Alex McLeish, 77 caps for Scotland. He's a hero - and he's the manager of Hibs!'

Alex and I just clicked and we've become very, very good friends. Alex is a massive movie buff; he watches movies religiously in his spare time. He has a great memory for films that he's seen and can quote lines from them. His memory is for lines; mine's for a pass from defence into attack. I'm a huge movie fan myself but my first love is football. He always wants to talk about films and I always want to talk about football! He's very successful, incredibly committed, dedicated and meticulous. We understand each other. We're from the same background and have the same values. Alex's family know my family from way back. He was born two streets away from where my father was born in Barrhead in Glasgow.

Alex and his wife Gill came to see me when I was in a play called To The Green Fields Beyond at the Donmar Warehouse in London, and I introduced him to Ray Winstone afterwards. Ray's a huge football fan too; he follows West Ham. We made a pact: I support the Hammers in England and he supports Hibs in Scotland.

I tried to explain the Hibs thing to Tom Cruise once. He's a very physical guy but he's not into football. We were talking about sports teams and I was trying to explain my passion for Hibernian Football Club. I was saying, like: 'The club started in 1875 as a way to get the local orphans off the streets, so the Irish priests formed Hibernian and it was a wonderful act of kindness by the priests to try and instill some sense of community and of worth into the young people of Leith.' But American actors don't really get football.

Alex and Gill also visited me on the set of a film I was shooting in Germany late last year called The Poet, about a Russian assassin, and he became an extra in it. There was this scene in an art gallery in Munich and I said to Alex, 'Do you want to be in it?' and he says, 'Aye'. I told him to stand there and look at a photograph on the gallery wall. Paul Hills, the director, was well up for it. Every time they cut, I said to Alex: 'Alex, no, no, feel the moment; get into it more. I don't believe you! Imagine you're looking at a fantastic footballer.' It was funny, me giving Alex acting lessons.

No, I didn't feel betrayed when Alex left Easter Road to join Rangers. I was sad, because Alex was a phenomenal manager of Hibs and had done an extraordinary job there. Under him we won the First Division by a record points margin, got to the Scottish Cup Final, played in the Uefa Cup - and beat Hearts 6-2. Alex had invited me into the directors' box for that game, which was at Easter Road in October 2000, but I don't think I behaved the way people in the directors' box are meant to behave. I was waving bye-bye to the Hearts fans after the fourth and fifth goals went in. I haven't been in the directors' box since but I prefer it in my season-ticket seat, where I can jump up and down.