What do you do if you actor husband is rumoured to be having an affair with his co-star?  Sarah Trevis, wife of Enigma's Dougray Scott, talk about the time it happened to her - and that photo call

The kiss that told: Douray Scott's failed attempt to kiss wife Sarah
 at the London premiere of Enigma in September fueled
speculation that he was wandering

Until this autumn, Sarah Trevis had always made a point of accompanying her husband, actor Dougray Scott, to the star-studded premieres of his films. Then, in September, she made what she now regards as a major error. Busy with her work as a casting director, she elected not to travel north of the border for the premiere of Dougray's movie Enigma at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Back in Hammersmith, West London, photographers descended on the tall, tranquil house that she and Dougray share with their three-year-old twins, Eden and Gabriel. Inside, Sarah read the newspapers with increasing bewilderment. 'Everything that was said was made up,' she sighs. 'After they finished making the film, I don't think Kate and Dougray saw each other even once. On one occasion, it was reported that Dougray had arrived back at the house in the morning - when actually, he was upstairs in bed. They said he'd sent me some flowers - I'd bought them myself. I began to think: what on earth are they going to say next that he's run off with Julia Roberts?'

She spreads out her palms and smiles. 'There's really nothing to say about our relationship except that we've always been incredibly in love with each other, and together. We're very happy, honestly. We've never been happier.' She pauses. 'All long-term relationships have their ups and downs - I'm not saying that they don't - but the problems tend to occur when you spend time apart. I don't work all year round, and we always said we would never spend more than two weeks apart. There's a lot of envy out there directed towards people like us. I understand that, but it did feel horrible while it was happening. I found it hard when people tried to take pictures of me across the park with my children.'

Sarah met Dougray nearly ten years ago. She was working as a casting director; he, a struggling unknown, had come to London from his native Scotland to appear in a play. They met at her office. 'The play was called - get this for a catchy title - Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Life,' she laughs. 'It required him to be naked most of the time. Highly attractive. I went to the show at least twice in the same week. He came to see my partner at work, and I thought he was really lovely. I don't believe in failing in love at first sight, but there was an instant connection between us.'

The couple quickly found they had a good deal in common. As Sarah puts ft, there was 'a great familiarity. He's the last child of four, so am 1. We're both from working-class backgrounds [Sarah's father was a ticktack man at the races; Dougray's was a salesman]. He's from Glenrothes and I'm from Birmingham, both very industrial towns - we're always arguing about who comes from the ugliest place. We have a similar kind of intelligence.'

So for Sarah, 1992 was a heady year. She had fallen in love and her career was going from strength to strength; she had just cast Shallow Grave - the film with which Ewan McGregor made his name (when Sarah and Dougray finally married at Chelsea Register Office last year, McGregor was best man). Dougray, however, was in and out of work and probably best known for his role in the TV series Soldier, Soldier. Then, in 1997, he was cast in the low-budget film Twin Town - a kind of Welsh Trainspotting. It was at this point that their life together changed for ever.

Sarah, the experienced casting director, could sense it coming. 'When he got Twin Town, his agent said to me, "This is just the kind of work I want him to do." The film did very well in America, so I suggested we should fly out. When we got there, everybody wanted to meet him. He got a lot of attention from all the right people - interesting agents as well as big ones. There was a moment when I thought, "I wonder if things are going to be different from now on?"'

Sarah, meanwhile, was feeling dreadful. 'I thought I had picked up a bug on the flight. I was driving Dougray round and I would stop the car outside these major studios, open the door and be sick on the side of the road. Then I found out I was pregnant on the same day Dougray got the part in Deep Impact. We just lay there in this scuzzy little room where we were staying in Santa Monica, thinking, "Oh my God."'

After that, things happened quickly; suddenly, Dougray was being cast in films such as Mission: Impossible II, opposite Tom Cruise. We went from being just two people on their own, madly in love, to expecting a baby and being surrounded by agents and publicists. It was pretty scary. Change is always frightening, but what amazes me is the ability of everyone to adapt to things if they're willing to.'

Back in London, the couple went for a scan and discovered that they were expecting not one baby, but two - another surprise. 'Afterwards, Dougray didn't say a word. He just chain-smoked his way down the King's Road. We ended up at Peter Jones, where I attempted a bit of retail therapy. I didn't know what else to do: I was with a man who wasn't speaking.' She tells me this story with a wry smile; she clearly finds such stereotypically male behaviour endearing rather than distressing.

The babies were eventually delivered by caesarean section. Sarah remembers being surprised by how perfect they were: 'I must have thought I was going to give birth to a couple of blobs.'

Having mixed-gender twins is, she says, completely fascinating. 'They have the same toys, and the same parents, yet somehow they choose to behave differently. I always used to think I would have been happy with two boys - they're so straightforward - but I love having a daughter. Eden is very girlie, and I enjoy that because I wasn't like that myself as a child.'

Sarah's career fits in well with being a mother: the seasonal nature of the film business means she has regular periods when she is not working. 'I try to do two films a year,' she says. 'Nothing much happens in the panto season. It's like being a brickie!'

It is a world she adores (she got into casting after a first career working on documentaries such as J'Accuse and Panorama). 'I love actors and directors, but I am also naturally happy facilitating someone else's vision and staying anonymous myself. Alex Ferguson's wife once said, "We cannae all be superstars," and I really subscribe to that. I don't need fame and attention in the way that some people do. I think it's very hard when both halves of a couple are actors.'

Casting, she says, is all a matter of taste - and, luckily, lots of people seem to like hers: the glittering list of films she has worked on includes Emma, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow, and Regeneration, with Jonny Lee Miller. But it also requires complex organisational skills - actors are busy and elusive people. 'I am very organised, although now that I'm older I think good things can emerge from chaos. I suppose I used to be very scared about untidiness, but it's inevitable that you relax once you have children. At times its like living with two wild animals.'

Her latest project is Cromwell and Fairfax, an English Civil War epic which starts shooting soon. Tim Roth will play Cromwell, and her husband Fairfax. Does she feel proprietorial about actors whose talent she has revealed to a wider audience?' I'm pleased when I can genuinely say I have found somebody - as I did with Keeley Hawes for Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar. But you let go afterwards. Actors never remember you, anyway.'

Though Sarah is putting a brave face on things, the past couple of months have clearly been difficult. She is hoping that her family will now be left alone to slip quietly back into its old routine. She laughs. Dougray is a famously obsessive Hibernian fan. In their house, she says, Saturdays are sacred. 'Dougray takes the children to the park in the morning and then they all come home and sit in front of the television watching Football Focus while they eat bacon sandwiches.

©2001 Associated New Media Limited

- Thanks to Janet & Gill for the article!