REWIND on Hollywood star-in-the-making Declan Laird’s story and it’s a series of Sliding Doors moments.

Had he not snapped his anterior cruciate ligament, made an outrageous $50 bet with his father and been approached by two strange men in an Los Angeles sushi restaurant, the 22 year-old wouldn’t be set to fly to Cuba to appear in an international TV series.

“That’s true,” says Laird, relaxing in his village coffee bar in Kilmacolm while back home in Scotland for a break.

“But of course when you tear your major knee ligament you don’t immediately see the positives.”

Five years ago, Declan was just eight minutes into his professional debut for Greenock Morton he leapt to head the ball and felt his knee rip inside. This Sliding Doors moment was in fact a door slamming shut.

“I was pretty miserable,” he recalls. “That summer, my dad took me on holiday to America, to Los Angeles, by way of giving me a pick-me-up.

“So we did the tour of the houses of the stars; all that nonsense. And one afternoon, we found ourselves dropped off by the tour bus on Hollywood Boulevard, with a few hours to kill before dinner.”

It was a fateful moment. “I didn’t notice but there was a chalkboard just a few feet away advertising the Stella Adler Acting Academy.

“My dad said to me ‘Do the workshop, Declan.’ I said ‘What workshop?’ And I read the board and replied ‘Not A Chance!’ But he persisted. ‘Do it. Your mum will love the story.’

“But I didn’t fancy the idea of my dad watching me do an acting workshop. So what he did was bribe me, $50 dollars. Twenty five up front and twenty five when I’d finished."

Declan, of course, had no idea the school boasted Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Salma Hayek among its alumni but he put himself forward.

“I did some readings, learned a monologue and at the end of the hour the head of the school said I should think about a career in acting.”

Declan and his dad laughed off the very notion and back home worked on rebuilding his knee.

“But one day, just as I was just about to begin my football coaching badges course, a business card for the Stella Adler Acting School fell out my wallet. I saw it as a sign. It made me think I really wanted to give the business a go.”

Declan’s dad John had a friend who knew someone who had an acting agency. And before you could say ‘Shellsuit Bob’ Declan landed a three episode part in River City, playing the doctor’s daughter’s tearaway boyfriend, alongside Holly Jack.

Declan went on to appear in a short film The Lost Purse, which earned him the Best Male Actor accolade at the Write Camera Action event in Glasgow in 2012.

All this and he hadn’t even appeared in a school play.

Meantime, he’d kept in touch with Stella Adler, who offered a place on their two-year acting course, with a free scholarship, the first since Robert De Niro.

Two months after his 18th, while his friends were heading off to uni, Declan took off to LA. But he was looked after by former Radio Clyde presenter Ross King, now an entertainment reporter in Hollywood. “Ross became like a big brother to me and when I mentioned I was interested in getting into a football team in LA, to help make friends, he said he’d ‘sort something out.’”

He did. Footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones called and offered a place in his All-Star team. He even picked Declan up and took him to acting auditions.

And while his social life was forming, Declan studied hard. “I knew nothing of writing so I set myself to read a play every week, a Tennessee Williams or a Shakespeare, whatever.”

He also had to master an American accent. “If I went into a coffee bar I’d speak in American. And I learned different dialects.”

But going up for auditions, the competition was incredibly tough. Did he feel like quitting? “If I were playing in a football match and we were getting beaten five nil I’d be the last to quit.”

His tenacity was rewarded by another lovely Sliding Doors moment. “I was in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, skypeing my dad and got talking to two guys who said they were in acting management, gave me their card, and asked me to come to their office. And I was signed up.”

Declan was on a roll. He landed a Chevrolet ad and major TV dramas followed, and two indie movies, including What Happens At Night, in which he plays a recently converted vampire with a conscience.

In the New Year he will appear in Havana, a Netflix drama, filmed in Cuba, where he plays a cheeky barman.

But his ambitions don’t stop there. He has written a short film and is working on a feature-length biopic idea.

Does he feel acting/writing has been his destiny all along?

“I think so,” he says. “As a young boy I was a shy kid until my dad taught me to talk to people. But I’d watch movies and think; ‘I could do that.’ In the football dressing room, I’d do impressions of the likes of Martin O’Neill.”

He adds, with a wry smile. “You know the truth? I wasn’t a great football player.”

What’s clear is Declan Michael Laird has the skills to make it as an actor in Hollywood, and not just in acting talent. He’s learned how to promote himself. His Twitter account @declanmlaird has more than 100,000 followers.

And his personal story is inspirational; that major success can emerge from disaster - if you try very hard. Yet, there must be some minuses. Come on, Declan. Your story is too much of a Frank Capra script?

“Well, I’m making a short film at Christmas and I’m playing a boxer and I have to have my head shaved,” he says, grinning.

“My mum thinks it’s hilarious I’m losing my Jedward. I’ve told her it’s not a Jedward at all but she’s having none of it.”