July 10, 2000
The Mirror
"Dougray is on a mission to prove he's the best of a bad bunch"
by Patricia Kane

SCOTT JOINS STAR LIST

Actor Dougray Scott will become one of the biggest baddies of all time as his new film Mission: Impossible 2 takes the country by storm.

But the Fife-born 34-year-old is just one of a growing list of Scots who have gone from the good to the downright bad to make their name in Hollywood.

And their astonishing transformation has been worth all the effort as, with the end of the Cold War, Scots have taken over from the Russians to become all the rage in the battle between good and evil.

Dougray says playing the villain opposite Tom Cruise in the new blockbuster, which opened in Scotland on Friday, was one of his biggest challenges to date.

And the actor pulled it off so well that when the film opened in America two months ago many critics were astounded to see just how evil he is as bio -terrorist Sean Ambrose.

Dougray, who in May married Sarah, his long-term girlfriend and mother of twins Gabriel and Eden, claims he had no problem finding the badness buried inside him.

He said: "Everyone has a dark side. "Everyone has an imaginary villain within them that they choose not to use.

"I guess you try to find it within you and go with that.

"A little of it is imagination, but all of us have moments in life when we want to do really bad things.

"You just have to take it one step further when you're in a character like this."

In the film, Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt and his mission is to get his hands on a deadly virus that Dougray's terrorist character is threatening to unleash.

Both characters are in love with a superspy played by Thandie Newton.

Dougray, whose last role was opposite Drew Barrymore in Ever After and who spent almost a year filming Mission: Impossible 2 in Australia, says: "This character lives life very dangerously. He's ruthless and vicious."

But he adds: "He doesn't think he's bad. He goes around thinking that he's entirely justified.

"He thinks that he's a reasonable man."

Last year, fans were shaken and stirred watching Robert Carlyle play the maddest, baddest, Bond villain ever in 007 blockbuster The World Is Not Enough.

The Scots actor starred as skinhead psychopath Renard, who has a bullet lodged deep within his brain that means he can't feel pain.

In the movie, the twisted killing machine is hellbent on blowing up the world after discovering he's slowly dying after being shot in the head by Bond.

The role confirms Carlyle - who has played a string of nutters in his career - as one of the film world's most convincing movie psychos.

He began by playing a wild-eyed white supremacist in an early Taggart story before moving on to serial killer Albie out to avenge the Hillsborough disaster in Cracker.

He later hit the big time as drunken headcase Begbie in the hard-hitting cult film Trainspotting which was set in Edinburgh.

Carlyle also revelled in the role of a cannibal in last year's movie hit Ravenous.

Carlyle beat off a host of Hollywood's biggest names to play Renard, a former French Foreign Legion officer.

He volunteered to shave his head to look like his favourite Bond baddie - Donald Pleasance as Blofeld in You Only Live Twice - even though it shocked the Queen when he collected his OBE earlier this year.

Carlyle, 37, who lives in Glasgow with his make-up artist wife Anastasia Shirley, said: "There's nothing better than watching myself in a film and there is a look in my eye that isn't me.

"It's the ultimate buzz for an actor and has only happened a few times in my whole career.

"When I do manage it I just totally lose it.

"Never mind 007, I wanted Renard to have Bond fans so scared they'd dial 999."

Carlyle, who first made his television breakthrough playing mild-mannered PC Hamish Macbeth, added: "I used to go and see the Bond films with my father in the 60s and early 70s when Sean Connery was Bond.

"At the time he was really the only Scottish actor around - the link between Connery, Bond, acting and being Scottish is fundamental.

"So when I went to see director Michael Apted to play this role he said, 'Is a Bond villain something you fancy?'

"I was sitting in his office at Pinewood with all these posters and all these films I've seen and was like, 'Yeah, yeah I'll do this'. It's like taking part in some sort of history piece.

"It's part of your psyche. You can remember where you were and what Bond film was out at a certain point in time.

"I don't know if I'd do another one like Robbie Coltrane - but I suppose you should never say never."

Cracker star Robbie, 49, first appeared in Pierce Brosnan's debut Bond outing GoldenEye as the superscoundrel Valentin Zukovsky, head of the Russian Mafia.

And he was such a big hit, he was asked back - although in The World Is Not Enough, the eastern European villain formed an uneasy alliance with Bond to defeat Renard.

ANOTHER top Scots baddie is Carnoustie-born Ian McDiarmid, who landed the plum role of evil Emperor Palpatine in last year's Star Wars blockbuster, Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

The 53-year-old, who reckons his unconventional looks have landed him numerous top parts, originally played the role in the Star Wars classic Return of the Jedi.

He said: "I only get cast because of my long pointy nose.

"I play a lot of grotesques because I suppose I look like one."

He was joined in the film by another Scot, Ray Park, who played evil Darth Maul.

Ray also played the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow and will soon be seen as a mutant in the big-screen version of Marvel Comics' X-Men.

A host of other Scots have also played villains in recent movie smashes.

Iain Glen, 37, portrayed a sadistic serial killer in Lynda La Plante's Crime And Retribution.

In the TV series, the Edinburgh actor - who was catapulted into the limelight last year when he starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the hit West End play The Blue Room - played soft-spoken Hannibal Lecter-style psychopath Damon Morton.

La Plante claimed she chose Glen - who has been tipped as the next Laurence Olivier - because he looked the part.

She said: "I knew he had to be blond and he had to have a pair of eyes that held you.

"Iain Glen is so special and so physically right for the part. I am very lucky to get him."

Fellow Scot David O'Hara shot to fame as the maniac King Stephen alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

But the 31-year-old actor from Cumbernauld also appeared in IRA movie Some Mother's Son with Helen Mirren -o with David playing a terrorist leader.

Lastly, there is Struan Rodger, who has so far managed to keep out of the limelight despite starring as the villain of a dozen TV films and series.

Highland-born Struan has played a number of bent cops and crooks in Taggart, The Vice, Prime Suspect and opposite Helen Baxendale in A Suitable Job for A Woman.

In hard-hitting cop show The Vice, he played an evil pimp who hurled beautiful hookers out of windows.

GRAPHIC: RUTHLESS STREAK: Dougray Scott, right, is the latest Scots actor to play a villain when he takes on the role of a terrorist in Mission:; Impossible 2 starring Tom Cruise, left; MENACE: Robert Carlyle

© 2000 The Mirror

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