Billy the kid comes of age

BILLY BOYD has come a long, long way in three years. Lord of the Rings transformed him, overnight, into a glittering international star. He’s found success, fame, even love. Billy is the new Ewan McGregor. And he knows it.

He boasts his own Pippin doll, replete with moving sword arm, a clutch of adoring websites - "one of them’s even in German" - and a honed knack for Hollywood reinvention. He’s grown two-and-a-half inches since we last met. Then, he shyly confessed to being 5ft 5in. Now he insists he’s actually 5ft 7in. "And a half," he adds crossly. Well, perhaps in Cuban heels. He doesn’t laugh.

Billy is an unlikely pin-up. Tiny - whatever he says to the contrary - with fingers like baby carrots and an impish grin, he looks like a cross between Ant, Dec and Mark Owen - the little one from Take That. But he takes himself pretty seriously these days. And why shouldn’t he? The LOTR trilogy made him £1.5 million in bonuses alone.

The former bookbinder from the East End of Glasgow can afford to be choosy. From Master and Commander with Russell Crowe to the horror flick Seed of Chucky, he is both picky and self-indulgent.

And so for his latest film, On a Clear Day, which opens the prestigious Sundance Film Festival this weekend, he stayed in his beloved Scotland for once. The movie, a heart-warming tale of male alienation, bonding and redemption, all propped up by Brenda Blethyn’s ubiquitous bosom, is The Full Monty for 2005.

Glasgow has seldom looked more bewitching on film. As Billy says: "It’s good to show that there’s other stuff. The city is not all about drug-taking."

He plays a fatherless, feckless youth who idolises the lead character, Frank - played effortlessly by the brilliant Peter Mullan - a laid-off docker who, instead of stripping to assuage his demons, swims the Channel. Billy’s Danny provides the much-needed comic relief, spending much of the movie prancing about in skimpy pink knickers.

For someone who spent three years in false feet, fake ears and a curly Hobbit wig, this was evidently no great hardship. "The knickers were more enjoyable than furry feet, that’s for sure," says Billy with his distinctive, defensive chuckle. "And it could have been worse. The director originally wanted me to wear a G-string. I put my foot down there. But I did try on lots of knickers. Big knickers, really small knickers. I’m an expert now. If there’s anything you want to know about knickers, I’m your man."

The sub-zero temperatures of Loch Lomond and the Irish Sea off the Isle of Man proved rather more taxing, however. "When you jumped in the water it took five seconds to get your breath back and remember where you were. It was seriously cold. You couldn’t actually stay in longer than 20 minutes."

Billy - who surfs, fences and dabbles in obscure martial arts unheard of even in Japan - certainly relishes a challenge: "I’ve always wanted to do the thing that’s maybe just out of reach."

Despite the receding hairline - he is, after all, 36 - and cultivated stubble, he has the looks, and naïve enthusiasm, of a teenager. "I was talking to Dave, the swimming double," he says excitedly, "and now I’m thinking maybe I’ll swim the Channel for my 40th like he did." I raise an eyebrow. "No, really."

But closer parallels drew Billy to the part. Danny is driven throughout by his desperate need for a father figure. Billy himself was orphaned when he was just 13. His mother, Mary, died from heart disease 23 years ago and his father, William, died shortly afterwards from cancer.

"Any actor who says he doesn’t use his own life is lying. You’re only ever the sum of everything that’s happened to you. If you’re going to tell a story and play a character truthfully it has to come from somewhere within.

"So, yes, I tapped into feelings of want and loss and need that I’ve felt. A lot of people say that acting is a form of therapy. It probably is."

IT CLEARLY PAINS BILLY that his parents were not able to witness his success. He shakes his head: "That would have been lovely, inviting them to my premieres. But that’s life.

"I’m just sad they’re not here. I wouldn’t mind if I were still a bookbinder, if only they were around."

Naturally gregarious and fun, fame has lent him a certain airy remove. Slouching about his Los Angeles apartment, noisily munching on an apple, he uses his trademark giggle like just another prop, a device to dodge tricky questions.

Maybe he’s just grown up. A little. The actor - once voted in a national poll as our most eligible bachelor, after Prince William - has, at last, settled down. Ali McKinnon is a beautiful, statuesque ballet dancer. They met three years ago, introduced by mutual friends, and live in a sprawling house in the West End of Glasgow. Billy taught her to surf and they have even starred in a small film together, Instant Credit.

Not bad for a man who, at 33, had been single for four years, admitted to "always" falling in unrequited love with his leading ladies - Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, et al - and said unconvincingly: "I’m not lonely or anything."

He says now: "Yes, it’s a serious thing. Acting together was great fun. We even got a day in Paris on location which was fantastic. There’s a chemistry there."

Ali sounds extremely sensible and capable, but doesn’t she worry about her heartthrob boyfriend - who once appeared in Entertainment Weekly as a "Hobbit Hunk" - roaming LA on his own for ten days stalked, no doubt, by smitten fans? He laughs nervously, again: "She’s not worried or daunted, no. And her career’s going well, so that helps." But do crazed groupies hurl themselves at him? One website devotes pages to his "dreamy eyes" alone before working its way downwards with ever-increasing gusto.

Billy wheels out that giggle once more

: "Look, it can get weird and wild, especially when there are a few of us together, Elijah and Dom and Orlando. But I’ve not become a Hollywood mess, no." For Billy is still very much his parents’ child. Down-to-earth, hard-working, aspirational.

When he was ten he was cast as the Artful Dodger in a primary school production of Oliver! The musical’s run coincided with a family holiday at Butlins, Ayr. Rather than pull his only son out of the role, William drove Billy to Cranhill then back to Ayrshire every night. "It was a terrible journey," he says. "Two hours each way. Dad was so proud. My mum enrolled me in a drama club in Bridgeton. And I loved it. I dreamed of being an actor. But when I told my guidance teacher I wanted to act, he just said: ‘Well, I wouldn’t tell anyone else that.’" Three years after his parents’ death, he left school to work as a bookbinder for Collins in Bishopriggs: "I wanted to hold onto something, be cosseted maybe. Earning some money, being able to buy a car and go on holidays just seemed more important. And of course there was this working-class thing of ‘getting a trade.’"

Books reawakened his appetite to act. Billy read each new book he bound: novels, poetry, plays. At the age of 23 - "almost on a whim" - he applied to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. To his astonishment, they accepted him.

Theatre roles in the musical version of Adrian Mole, Trainspotting and The Ballad of Crazy Paola followed, as did movie appearances beside Jason Connery in Urban Ghost Story and Toyah Willcox in Julie and the Cadillacs - not to mention the occasional Taggart.

LORD OF THE RINGS was his big break. Director Peter Jackson was so impressed by Billy’s audition tape that he flew from New Zealand to Scotland especially to meet him. And the "late-starter" has not had a bad review yet.

"I’m so, so lucky," he says. "Even though part of me regrets now that I didn’t go to drama school earlier. But I enjoyed my time at the printers. And without that life experience, those seven years of a normal life, would I be the actor I am, the person that I am? Probably not."

And there lies the rub. Billy remains in limbo, both craving and dreading fame. He’s not quite on-message, not entirely sure whether he should be playing the nice-boy-next-door or the Hollywood player. The own-brand trainers and corduroy slacks sit uneasily with the livid LA backdrop and the "Elvish Fellowship" tattoo on his heel. For a multi-millionaire star who is now a red-carpet veteran, he can be touchingly gauche. When we met, he was still flummoxed over what to wear for the world premiere of On a Clear Day which happened this weekend.

"I’ve never been to Sundance before, so I’ve packed a big bag full of different outfits. I can take it with me, just in case," He says, scratching his head. "Och, I’ll probably end up just wearing a black suit. (in the end he chose pinstripes)

"Hollywood is all about being seen. There’s a rumour that every time you go to one of these things you find out there’s another VIP room even more exclusive - and so it goes on until it’s just you and Jack Nicholson.

"But, to be honest, as long as I can get into the room where the free drink is, that’s enough for me."

With that, he tucks a surfboard the size of a Ford Fiesta under his arm and pads off awkwardly down the beach.