The Scottish actor faces off against Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2.

Say, for whatever reason, Tom Cruise broke into the homely Winnebago currently parked in the stately grounds of Luton Hoo, he could beat seven shades of shit out of the caravan's solitary occupant, one Dougray Scott. Easy. Sporting greased hair, brown cords and a runny nose, said Scott looks every inch a boffin and nothing at all like the hard-as-nails ubervillain Ambrose, soon to be seen going the full 15 with Tom in M:12. But, of course, it wasn't always this way.

Last summer, long before he got deep into his present character of Tom Jericho, the "maths geek" hero of wartime thriller Enigma, Scott was 22 pounds heavier, at an "all-time" fitness peak and making damn sure that as Ambrose he "caught him (that's Cruise) a good few ones in the ribs." Not that Tom was ever a pushover: "I remember the first day of filming, he jumps in the air and he comes down and smacks me. Christ, he caught me in the jaw. 1 turned round and I was thinking... (mouthing silently), 'You fucking bastard."'

The source of all this conflict was the spectacular climax of John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2, a bike chase-cum-sand-in-the-face-bitch fight which Scott calls, "the toughest thing I ever had to do. "

"It took weeks and weeks and weeks," says the actor, currently enjoying a lunch break from shooting Enigma. "Must have taken three months to film. Even more." He pauses, taking a mouthful of pie and potatoes. "But we had a real laugh doing the fight." Sure sounds like it.

After being signed up in July '9 8, Scott spent some time working on his character, the rogue IMF Agent Ambrose, with "big bear" Robert Towne - "We wanted to show the sympathetic side, otherwise he just comes off as angry and evil" - before joining the shoot in March 1999. Nine months of filming - not to mention pickups in March of this year - including the aforementioned action sequence, would be enough to test the patience of any actor, but as a self-confessed perfectionist, Scott obviously proved an ideal companion/opponent for his producer/co-star: "I guess in that respect he (Cruise) liked working with me. We would both do it as many times as it took to get something right." As it turned out, with a certain Hong Kong maestro calling the shots, the right take was hard won indeed. "I mean, John Woo shoots from every different angle - it's almost like he choreographs a ballet," sniffs Scott, currently fighting no more than a cold. "He covers everything. And it takes a long time."

Not that Scott has any need to worry about missing out on this summer's biggest hype. Recently returned from Mission's LA premiere - "It was mad, the biggest thing I've ever seen in my life" - he has only just come to terms with the opening numbers. "I mean, huuuge, incredible," he says of the mind-boggling $90 million first weekend.

With his first big movie lead as Enigma's unconventional hero to follow, once the rather more manageable three-month shoot wraps, the fresh-faced 34 year-old - who decided to be an actor aged 14 after reading Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman ("My father was a salesman and I just made a huge connection") and got his first real break aged 31 as Terry Walsh in Twin Town now looks poised for global recognition.