DOUGRAY'S TEASER ON HIS VISA
PASSPORT PHOTOS WITH A CHEEKY MESSAGE
MISSION Impossible star Dougray Scott doesn't look
like a Hollywood hero in his latest set of
pictures.
But the handsome Scot's funny faces are all for a
good cause - the foreign aid children's charity,
UNICEF.
Dougray was one of nearly 200 celebs who agreed to
passport pictures with a difference to raise funds
for Growing Up Alone, a project which helps
children around the world who grow up without a
family through poverty, war, or disease.
Photo booths were erected in some of the world's
most luxurious hotels to ensure a passing trade in
celebrities.
Each set of images, by photographer Alistair
Morrison, is accompanied by a message from the
celebrity.
Alistair said: "Dougray was taken in the Dorchester
Hotel in London. He was very self-effacing and keen
not to have any 'pretty boy' pictures, but just to
have some fun.
"He said his message was something that his father
used to say to him, which was nice."
The money will be raised through Reflect 2000
exhibitions at galleries and theatres throughout
the country
A UNICEF spokesman said: "We would certainly hope
to bring Reflect 2000 to Scotland at some point
this year."
As for that valued piece of homespun philosophy
from his dad to Dougray:
"Son, keep it in your troosers."
Three interviews with Dougray
Scott:
Dougray Scott: He doesn t
want to be chased down the street
Neon magazine UK October
9
Article by: Lorien Haynes
Suave, sexy, Scottish: three
words usually reserved for Sean Connery-before
his turn as a scheming weather
thief in the rancid Avengers movie. Now
the
ex-Bond looks in danger
of having his own thunder stolen, for the
adjectives
are increasingly being applied
to newcomer Dougray Scott, tipped to co-star
with Tom Cruise as the villain
in John Woo s Mission; impossible sequel.
Strangely, it was as a Welshman
that he first stood out, appearing in Twin
Town as a cop "so bent you
could hang a Hawaiian shirt on him". And after a
small role in the asteroid
drama Deep Impact, he plays his biggest role yet
courting Drew Barrymore
in Ever After, a revamp of the Cinderella story.
Scott doesn t seem to take
the part too seriously, and he feels the same
about Hollywood. "I m sure
there are loads of lovely cities in America, but
LA ain t one of em, " he
says. "It s all about power-playing, and
networking s not for me."
Scott prefers to find his
own way. Which is maybe what made him commit to
the
imaginatively titled Another
9 ½ Weeks. "I thought it d be fun to meet
Mickey
Rourke, y know?" he explains.
"I mean, God, a film with Mickey! And then "
He
sticks his fingers down
his throat. "Oh, a terrible, terrible script. Dull,
bad, boring-straight to
video."
Scott credits his down-to-earth
attitude to a working-class upbringing in
Fife. "I hated school so
much, " he says. "I was a misfit. The teachers
were
crap, patronizing and orientated
towards the middle-class kids. It was all,
this is the system and I
was like, Shut it and teach me about life !"
It was after the TV series
Soldier Soldier that Scott had his first taste
of
fame-and it wasn t to welcome.
"Thank God I m not Ewan McGregor-he gets
chased down the street.
Christ I don t want that. I want to be successful,
not a star."
He s now back in Scotland
filming Bill Forsyth s Gregory s Girl sequel and
is
soon to be seen in the London-set
comedy This Year s Love. "I play a wild
cannon," he says. "An artist
who abuses n spends his time looking at lonely
hearts columns, seeing three
or four women at a time and not telling them
what he s doing. And, um,
he doesn t tent to wash."
So what should Scott write
in his own lonely hearts ad? "I d lie and say,
tall, dark, bohemian artist
with own flat seeks classy woman for
intelligent
conversation and candle-lit
dinners." Something like that." Suddenly
self-conscious, he pauses.
"Why? What would you put?"
Dougray's love for This Year
This Year's Love
(18) Kathy Burke, Catherine
McCormack, Douglas Henshall, Dougray Scott.
Dir:
David Kane. UK. 1999. 118mins
by Dougray Scott
This Year's Love is a contemporary
partner-switching comedy set in Camden
Town. When I read the script
I felt as if I knew all the people. I think
Kathy Burke, Jennifer Ehle,
Ian Hart, Dougie Henshall, Catherine McCormack
and Emily Woof - all of
us - did.
I play Cameron, an artist
who lives life like one of his heroes, artist
Egon
Schiele. He wants to live
in poverty, which he more or less does, although
he
probably doesn't have that
much choice because his art isn't going to make
him money. Nor would mine.
I painted some of the pictures in the film,
including one of a dog that
my character sells at auction for a pittance.
I've kept it - it hangs
on the wall in my study at home. I went to an art
teacher for a couple of
months to learn how to paint and tried to paint
that
dog in the style of Modigliani.
I rather like Cameron. He's
an attractive character. He spends time looking
at the lonely-hearts columns
- not something I've ever done. What would I
say? "I want to meet somebody,
help!" It seems an easy way to meet someone
without emotional commitment.
Cameron meets three or four women a week and
has no qualms about dumping
them or cheating horribly on them. When he's
with
them he's great company,
very loving, but totally uncommitted.
He treats everything and
everybody as an experience to be savoured and
doesn't waste any time on
regrets. He's quite honest about it. He doesn't
think he's sad. He believes
he'll die young and thinks life is to be
enjoyed.
He celebrates life on the
edge. He's quite louche, really. I've never
thought
about whether I am. It'd
be nice to go round saying "Yeah, I'm louche."
British Elle
January 1999 issue
Elle Hot 100
article
#92 Dougray Scott
CV: Fife-born new sexy Scott
on the block. You might have caught him
swooning over Drew Barrymore
in Ever After, looking macho in Deep Impact or
as a coke-snorting copper
in Twin Town.
On his Celtic roots:
"I grew up in a small Scottish town. It couldn't be
further from my life these
days. My dad was a salesman. He had to get up
to
sell fridges on commission.
My friends think it's a blast that I'm an
actor
now."
Biggest achievement so far:
"Learning to paint like Modigliani for This
Year's Love-that was a real
challenge. And just getting here in the first
place."
On his real-life love interest:
"I've been with someone for five years.
I'm
careful what I talk about
these days though. One of my mates recently told
me there's stuff about my
personal life on the Internet. It's a little
freaky."
Next up: Mission Impossible
II, "I play a villian-the rest is a secret,"
he
smirks. Also in This Year's
Love with Catherin McCormack and Kathy Burke,
then sports a kilt in Gregory's
Two Girls. Can't wait.
Have you noticed...
... that Brit boys are big in the States?
Diana Brogden
Sunday September 12, 1999
It's not just exam results where boys take second best to girls. When it
comes to exporting thespian talent to the States, our actresses have enjoyed
considerable successes in the past few years, while the Brit lads couldn't
get arrested, let alone cast, in LA (Hugh Grant apart, of course).
True, Tim Roth and especially Gary Oldman have made interesting American
villains, but Grant aside, the most recognisable English screen figure among
current US audiences is Austin Powers. All that looks set to change as a
number of young Britons have begun to attract favourable attention from
Hollywood.
The Little Known Over Here But Big Over There Award goes to Dougray Scott.
He took Drew Barrymore to the ball in Ever After: The Cinderella Story and
was the arrogant womaniser in the Camden-set romantic comedy, This Year's
Love. Now he's starring opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2 and has
just been cast in Bryan 'The Usual Suspects' Singer's comic-book adaptation,
X-Men.
Despite the absence of a major film part on his CV, Ioan Gruffudd's leading
roles in the TV costume drama Great Expectations and Hornblower have sparked
a flurry of interest in the chiselled-jawed actor. He's being lined up to
play opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in the remake of the assassination movie,
The Tenth Victim.
Other frequent flyers to LA whose careers look set for an upgrade include
Jeremy Northam and Jude Law. The names may not match the allure of Caine,
Connery and co, but once again, it seems, the British are coming...
Sunday Times
October 17 1999
CINEMA
Gawky Gregory still charms, but it's about time he grew
up, says COSMO LANDESMAN
Gregory's Two Girls
Do you remember that 1960s school sitcom, Please Sir!?
The one with John Alderton as the nice teacher who'd get
into a tongue-tied tizzy when confronted by the blonde
bombshell of 5C? If you can imagine a movie of that series
made by Oliver Stone (minus the paranoia) and inspired by
Noam Chomsky, you'll have some idea of what Gregory's
Two Girls is like. Maybe writer-director Bill Forsyth should
have called this film Please Sir, Can I Be Excused From the
Neo-Fascist Hegemony of American Cultural Imperialism?
Forsyth mixes heavy-handed agit-prop messages with the
frothy feelgood fun of a coming-of-middle-age comedy. And
there's something relentlessly old-fashioned about this film
that makes it refreshing. It takes place in the same Scottish
new town and school that was the setting for Gregory's Girl.
Twenty years later, nothing seems to have changed. There's
not a hint of vandalism or graffiti in the school. And look at all
these clean-cut Scottish teenagers; not a needle or a nose ring
in sight.
This is the lost world of Scottish youth before Irving Welsh
came along with his tales of urban nihilism and depraved
druggies. But Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) is worried
about a different kind of deadly junk: American popular
culture. When two of his pupils ask if they can go to
pom-pom practice, he says: "Go on, be culturally
brainwashed. American football is just one more way
America dominates the world."
The last time we saw Gregory he was a charming and gawky
teenager who lusted after a teenage girl with terrific legs
called Dorothy. Now he's a charming and gawky adult who
lusts after a teenage girl with terrific legs called Frances
(Carly Mc- Kinnon). The other girl in his life is Bel (Maria
Doyle Kennedy) - a sex-starved teacher who stalks him.
Given the film's interest in the theme of teacher-pupil sex, the
great challenge for Forsyth is: how do you avoid making your
hero look like a dirty old man? After all, there's a thin line
between the sexual desires of a sweet teenager and the sleazy
dreams of the sad sack who should know better. It's called
adulthood. Forsyth's solution is simple and effective: he
makes the adult Gregory act just like the adolescent Gregory.
(Yes, another tale of the grown-up who never grew up.) So
in the presence of Frances he regresses to being that
bumbling, embarrassed boy who's always on the brink of a
blush and terrified by the prospect of BO. Adolescent
embarrassment is what John Gordon Sinclair does best, and
he's the most appealing thing about this film. As for the
comedy, it's your staple teen diet of slips of the tongue ("I'd
love to see Frances's beaver . . . I mean badger!"), stains on
the crutch and being mistaken for gay.
When it comes to the tricky business of sex between
35-year-old Gregory and 16-year-old Frances, Forsyth has
claimed it's a "real situation and we try to deal with it in a real
way". On the contrary, what he does is remove all traces of
real eroticism or lust from his hero. It's as if Gregory's desires
have been covered in a comic-coated condom, so that we
the viewers get safe and silly sex. In the one scene where we
actually see them doing it, it's played strictly for laughs.
Besides, it turns out to be just a dream - just the sort of crass
Hollywood cop-out you'd think Forsyth would disapprove
of.
Of course, this wouldn't really matter if all that Forsyth
wanted to make was a fun movie. But at the heart of his film
is a serious message about how - as Gregory puts it to his
class - we need to question "what is real and what's not real".
The reality of Gregory's infatuation, though, isn't the sweet,
innocent thing Forsyth shows us. When men like Gregory
have dreams about girls like Frances, believe me, they're not
in bed doing stand-up comedy together. The truth is, Greg
doesn't really know Frances; he'd just like to sleep with her
because she's a sexy 16-year-old. Tell that kind of reality to
your audience and your star isn't going to seem such a
charming chap.
Forget Gregory's forbidden passion - what about his politics?
He's far more interested in the polemics of Chomsky than the
plays of Shakespeare. He's always telling his pupils to take a
moral stand, to get involved with social issues. "Interact with
the real world. Don't spectate, participate," he says. These
words are thrown back at him by Frances when she
discovers that Fraser Rowan (Dougray Scott) - an old
schoolmate of Gregory's who owns the local electronics
factory - is making computers that are being used to torture
people in the Third World. Frances wants Gregory's help to
expose Fraser's evil doings. At first he says no, because it's
illegal and dangerous. "So what shall we do," ask Frances,
"just spectate? You think you're a hero because you wear a
badge for Amnesty International. You're nothing but an old
badge collector." Ultimately, the author's message is a
variation on Marx: hitherto armchair activists and idealists
such as Gregory have only sat on their arses interpreting the
world; the point is to do something to change it.
The film ends with Gregory and Frances trying to do their bit
for human rights by dumping all of Fraser's instruments of
torture in the sea. We see these computers sinking and are
meant to cheer. But it's actually an image of utter futility, as if
Fraser wouldn't have a new batch ready to ship out by
teatime. Clearly, Frances has succeeded in giving Gregory
back his political innocence. if only Forsyth had lost his, this
would have been a more interesting film.
Gregory's Two Girls (105 mins, 15) ***
The Guadian/Observer
More about Gregory's Two Girls
Gregory's Two Girls
In Gregory's Girl there was youthful
charm and Clare Grogan. In the
sequel there is neither, laments Peter
Bradshaw
Friday October 15, 1999
I sometimes feel about John Gordon
Sinclair the way Dr Evil feels about his
clone, Mini-Me: "Look at that little face!"
he croons, "I can't stay mad at you for
long!" It is easy to feel a warm and
tolerant glow on seeing Mr Gordon
Sinclair's pert chops once again on the
big screen in Gregory's Two Girls: that
gawky, pawky, pinky, perky little face, the
droll cherub face, hardly any different from
when he first appeared as a love-struck
teenager in Gregory's Girl, made in 1982 -
to which this is a sequel, directed, once
again, by Bill Forsyth.
So Gregory's Girl is 17 years old, and well
may you hope that, in honour of the
anniversary, Miss Clare Grogan - a
veteran of the first film - might appear,
bringing her ra-ra skirt out of retirement
and giving us all a rousing on-camera
chorus of Happy Birthday, just for old
times' sake.
But, sadly, no. Gordon Sinclair is the only
star from the original brought back. He
plays Gregory Underwood, the same lad,
now all grown up at 35 years old, a sad
case single guy back at the same school
as a teacher.
What an excellent idea for a film,
potentially replete with "35-Up" pathos,
and a pleasingly melancholy opportunity
to counterbalance the teenager looking
forward to his prime with the scruffy
teacher looking back on his, having
somehow missed it in the interim.
Unfortunately, the movie turns out to be a
bit of a mess: an uneven romp with all the
plausibility of a Children's Film Foundation
feature or an old Scooby-Doo episode.
And though young Gregory Underwood
has grown up, it is clear that Bill Forsyth
hasn't: the feel and the atmosphere of
Gregory's Two Girls show it to be weirdly
marooned in that late 70s/early 80s period
of Mr Forsyth's pomp.
The two girls of the title are effectively a
splitting in half of the role played by Dee
Hepburn in the original: that is, a
football-playing teen nymphet and some
love interest of Gregory's own age. The
first is 16-year-old Frances, played by
newcomer Carly McKinnon, in traditionally
bonny but somehow unsexy football kit.
Greg is her English teacher, given to
nursing fervid and unwholesome fantasies
about giving Frances a right seeing-to on
a pile of crash mats in an annexe next to
the PE changing-rooms. When one day
Frances whispers urgently in his ear that
she must see him, Greg reckons his luck
is in, and looks forward to giving any
residual scruples the heave-ho.
Gregory's second "girl" is a teacher: Bel
(Maria Doyle Kennedy), a mature,
attractive, intelligent, independent-minded
person, the very antithesis of Greg's male
gormlessness, but evidently encumbered
in this film with the uncool and undignified
business of whining at Greg for a date,
drunkenly begging him for sex and finally
accepting him without a qualm when he
cutely deigns to turn up at her flat.
All the principals - Gordon Sinclair,
Kennedy, McKinnon - do a perfectly good
job, and there are plenty of amiable and
efficiently-realised comic set-pieces,
particularly when Greg and Frances,
caught together in the park, have to
pretend they are watching badgers, and
Greg says he is studying Frances's
"beaver". (John Murtagh gives a terrific
turn here as Greg's headmaster, glowering
but mightily amused at Greg's Olympic
Freudian slip.)
The real problem is that Forsyth has tried
to deepen the adult Greg by making him
into a strangely dated political idealist of
the 1979-83 vintage, spending his
evenings watching videotapes of Noam
Chomsky, reading the New
Internationalist, and helping his pupils
break into a factory they suspect of
manufacturing torture equipment for evil
but unspecified foreign regimes. He even
spends an evening singing along with
Chilean refugees. These themes are
naturally relevant in 1999, but it is
tiresome to see them used in this
facetious and insincere way; Gordon
Sinclair is never convincing for a moment
as a radical enthusiast, however adorably
naive, and his political affectations are as
shallow and irritating as a "Maggie Out"
badge. Added to this are the timid and
naive sexual politics, which are very
watery compared to, say, the cutting-edge
bad taste of Alexander Payne's Election.
Ultimately, the film is far too saccharine to
let Greg actually have sex with a pupil, or
to admit of a pupil's real sexual feelings
for a teacher. And career woman Bel finds
her place to be at Greg's side, never doing
anything as dramatically exciting as the
fascinating young Frances.
This quaint film is from the stable of
Forsyth movies such as That Sinking
Feeling and Local Hero, and
disconcertingly out of its time. Once
Forsyth and his fey, cuddly pictures were
thought to be the quintessence of our film
industry; rightly or wrongly, the fashion is
now for zappier, sexier stuff, with Jude
Law rather than John Gordon Sinclair.
Perhaps that is a shame, as all Forsyth's
films have charm, including this one. But,
unfortunately, Gregory's Two Girls has the
unhappy distinction of being an Accidental
Period Piece.