He left Hyndland Secondary School early to help his father, and undertook National Service in the Royal Scots Greys, where he was a tank mechanic.
After he left the Army he studied at the College of Dramatic Art at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he won a Gold Medal for acting.
He played the leading role of Stephen Dedalus in the film adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses (1967) and also appeared in Oh!
Other films he acted in include A Day at the Beach (1970), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Hidden Agenda (1990), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Judge Dredd (1995), The Acid House (1998) and Beautiful Creatures (2000).
[citation needed] He then went on to appear in The Sweeney (1975), Danger UXB (1979), The Nightmare Man (1981), the Doctor Who serial The Caves of Androzani (1984), Days of Our Lives (1986), North and South (1985), Tutti Frutti (1987), Rab C. Nesbitt (1990), The New Statesman (1990), Spender (1991), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993), the BBC adaptation of Vanity Fair (1998), EastEnders (2003), A Touch of Frost (2003) and Skins (2008).