Is he one of Britain's top actors? Just why did he have to say no to the X-Men movie? Why did he star in Twin Town? All these questions and more asked by John Millar...

Dougray Scott looks very different from the cool and super chic villain who swapped punches with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2. It's not only that his hair has been hacked back into a severe short back and sides, nor that he's wearing sensible brown brogues and corduroy trousers supported by heavy duty braces. The most conspicuous change in the tall - he stands six feet tall in his stocking feet - Scots star is that he is even slimmer than ever. Down on a sound stage at Elstree Studios,

a smiling Dougray explains that he's lost over a stone-and-a-half to portray a character on the edge of a nervous breakdown... the heroic boffin at the centre of Enigma, director Michael Apted's take on the World War II drama behind Britain breaking the Nazi's Enigma code. "The guy I play has got to look fragile, because for most of the film he is teetering on the verge of a breakdown," says Dougray, during a break in filming as he waits for another shot to be set up.

He reveals that his slim-line look was achieved by adhering to the cabbage soup diet.

"I ate cabbage soup and then one day I ate vegetables, the other day it was fruit," explains Dougray. "You feel really hungry at the beginning but then you get used to it."

Starring alongside Kate Winslet and Saffron Burrows in Enigma - which is produced by Mick Jagger's Jagged Films - is the latest chapter in the remarkable development from Dougray "who?" to big-screen stardom.

After success in television dramas, like the hit army series Soldier, Soldier - which he stepped away from after just a single series because he was quietly determined not to become pigeonholed - the Fife-born actor, whose real name is Stephen, started to make his mark in movies.

"Because Mission went on so long I had to pull out of X-Men," he says. "20th Century Fox were great. They pushed the film three months back to wait for me. In the end everyone did what they could to try and make it work, but they couldn't. So that was it."

Refreshingly Scott refuses to allow his career success to turn his head. When Film Review wonders how he is handling the fame game, the actor shrugs and says that it is something to which he never gives very much thought. "I never imagine being recognized when I am walking around the street. If I just keep my head down it'll be OK," he says. He also insists that despite the big-budget scripts that are now coming his way, he is as keen as ever to tackle low-budget films.

"Of course, I am aware of how much my profile has risen in America, but I just try to concentrate on what I'm doing," he says.

That attitude was prevalent when Dougray was invited to film Enigma. Instead of simply grabbing the offer, the big Scot thought very carefully about what might be involved before making his decision.

"I did a bit of research before making up my mind to do Enigma, to find out what I was getting myself into. It meant five months research and then three months filming, so that was quite a commitment. But I found the whole thing about the Enigma machine intriguing."

This is a very different film from the high octane action of Mission: Impossible 2, but Dougray still had to do some action sequences for the World War II story. "I had to do a stunt for  Enigma that made me feel as though I was back on Mission Impossible. A train was pulling out of a station and I had to run after it and jump on board. It was pretty hairy, I had to run like the wind to make it," says Dougray.

	When he met with Film Review, Dougray had seen and admired Breaking the Code, the TV movie about cracking the Enigma code. He was very impressed by the performance of Sir Derek Jacobi as code-cracker Alan Turing. But, grinning, he says he hasn't yet managed to catch up with U-571, the controversial Hollywood
submarine movie that gives America credit for the Enigma mission. "Apparently it's a very good film but I can imagine how it could have upset people who fought in the Second World War," he says.

During his preparation for Enigma, Dougray spent quite a lot of time at Bletchley Park, the home of the war-time boffins in order that he might be able to immerse himself in the skill of code-breaking. "I spent a huge amount of time going through the mechanics of the Enigma machine and I met a lot of mathematicians at Cambridge to find out the sort of brain power that you would need to break a code.

"It was very demanding work but one day it all just seemed to click in my head and I could see it all clearer than ever. I knew how to play this character.

"Because you start to think cryptically, I suppose all that research now means I will be better at crosswords."

Enigma is released September 28

© Visual Imagination Ltd.

- Thanks to my pal Marla of Admiring Kate for the article and scans!