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The careers adviser at Auchmuty High School was not very positive when Dougray Scott told him he wanted to be an actor. "He just laughed and suggested that I go to the docks and be a fitter," says Scott, reminiscing. But two decades on, Scott is the one doing the laughing. Proving the careers teacher resolutely wrong, he is now one of Hollywood's hottest properties, best friends with Tom Cruise and regularly touted as the next James Bond. After box-office success with films such as Mission: Impossible II and Enigma, he now has sufficient stature to turn down lead parts in films such as X Men without batting an eyelid. In fact, he's about as far as you can get from being a fitter.
Yet despite the fame and fortune, Scott has not lost touch with his roots. Having been brought up on a Glenrothes council estate, it's perhaps unsurprising that he has held on to the impassioned socialism that his family first instilled in him. "I am left-wing," he confirms. "I've been a socialist since I could remember what politics were."
Now based in London, Scott recently captured the headlines when he announced that, if he was living in Scotland, he would vote for the Scottish Socialists. "I absolutely agree with all of the SSP manifesto; it's full of good, sound socialist policies," he says. "I would pay more money in taxes to give nurses and firefighters a decent wage. It's just incredible the present government will spend literally billions on the war and then say we don't have money to pay workers. It's a strange time."
Scott feels strongly about the war in Iraq, calling it "an incredibly violent act". He says, "It breaks your heart. They didn't even know why they were going to war. In war, there are no winners. All you do is create divisions that last for hundreds of years. They've opened a can of worms in Iraq, and the ramifications will carry on for centuries. The lesson is clear: be careful what you wish for."
Ensconced in a swanky central London hotel suite, drinking coffee after coffee, Scott is infused with the same passion on a variety of subjects. In the past, interviewers have described him as...