Gregory's Girl star goes treasure hunting

He's the actor's actor, a man who can turn his hand to most challenges, playing everything from gangsters to to very gay characters, from pirates to pickpockets.

However, Sanny, as his friend call him, reveals the acting journey has been far from straightforward.

"I was an angry young man," he recalls of life growing up in the Calton.

"The culture in the Calton wasn't healthy. The survival rate for men is something like 52. It's worse than Syria.

"My dad is still alive, and at 79 he's one of the oldest."

Sanny's school years spelled out hopelessness. He was bullied relentlessly.

"I went to school in Bridgeton and there was no teaching going on. It was all so unruly.

"So I was sent to the Dolphin Arts Centre during school hours, by way of giving kids like me the chance to do something like puppetry.

"But it got to the point I'd spent most of my days in the centre."

Then Sanny found acting. And he loved the world.

"We did plays, some of them funded by Jimmy Boyle," he recalls.

In 1979 writer Bel Mooney was running a series of magazine pieces called the Year of The Child, talking to 12 young people from all over Britain.

The features became a book.

"I was featured in a book, a whole chapter on me," he says, smiling of the tale which a revealed a life of poverty, of desperation.

"My family had nothing. And I had this chip on my shoulder."

But acting offered a lifeline. "I did school shows from the age of 13 as well as joining youth theatre.

"Then one day, a friend of Slab Boys writer John Byrne suggested I go up for an audition for the play.

"So I went up with pal Rab Buchanan (who went on to appear in films such as That Sinking Feeling and Gregory's Girl) and we met John Byrne, and David Hayman, who was in the show.

"I read for the part and never got it. Composer Patrick Doyle got it. But the experience showed me the window into this professional world. I wanted to do this for a living."

The 16-year-old Sanny toured with youth theatre throughout the UK. He appeared in BBC film Just A Boy's Game, with Frankie Miller and Gregor Fisher.

"Frankie was from Bridgeton so there was a real connection there."

Sanny, who drank a lot, but never went down the heroin route as so many of his friends did, took a job in a plumber's merchants.

Then director/writer Bill Forsyth came along to his youth theatre group to cast for a film, Gregory's Girl.

"He came on tour with us, he was really part of it all. And a really funny guy. But he couldn't get funding at the time for Gregory's Girl, so he turned his attention to another script he had written, That Sinking Feeling."

Set in Glasgow, it tells of how four bored, unemployed teenagers come with the idea of stealing stainless steel sinks from a warehouse and selling them.

Their plan involves dressing up as girls and using a chemical 'stop-motion' potion.

But Bill Forsyth couldn't afford to build a set.

"He asked me to ask my boss if we could use the yard," he says of the comedy film that became a cult.

"My boss agreed and I think the film was made for about four grand."

"During the filming we 'borrowed' a couple of sinks and never gave them back," he says, smiling.

"I'm sure one of them ended up in Bill Forsyth's house."

Gregory's Girl followed, and again Sanny landed a key role as a window cleaner, one of Gregory's pals.

"I gave up the plumber's gig," he says, smiling.

Sanny went on to work with 7: 84 Theatre Company, and he appeared in Alex Norton's drama Waiting For Elvis, playing the lead role.

He starred in the second-ever Taggart, playing a murderer alongside Ken Stott, whom he worked with years later in Rebus. And he's worked in national theatre.

But it's the Pavilion he calls his theatre home, starring in a range of comedies and dramas such as Please Stay.

Sanny is a producer's delight who can play a range of roles.

However, he admits he almost blew his career on drink. The Saracen Head pub was at one point his virtual home.

"Luckily, my wife Jackie helps keep it all together," he says, smiling. "She's a psychologist who works at Caledonian University."

He adds, grinning; "I think I'm one of her experiments."

Jackie has had a lot of raw material to work with.

"I met her in Blackfriars pub," he recalls. "I said to her 'I suppose marriage is out of the question?' Well, that was 23 years ago and I wonder how she put up with me since."

Sanny admits the acting profession can be tough.

"There are highs and lows. And when you get something like Gregory's Girl you're thrown into the limelight.

"I thought I was the bee's knees but you learn it doesn't last forever. And you get on with it."

Now, he's also making his own films, writing producing and directing. His first feature, Star Cash, is the tale of the world wide phenomenon of hi-tech treasure hunts, found via iPhones.

"There are five and half million people in the world who download the geocaching app and go looking for treasure in the likes of Mugdock Park.

"There are that many people who could be interested in watching this movie. There is a massive market and I want to get a deal to release the film."

He adds; "Bill Forsyth inspired me, and it's a zero budget film, using professional pals and helpers. It's taken me a year until now.

"I spoke to Bill a couple of months ago and he said 'Well done for holding the torch."

Acting has helped Sanny make sense of life.

"Becoming another character helped me forget about the conditions I grew up in, the extreme bullying," he admits.

"It was an escape for me.

"Even now, when I'm doing comedy at the Pavilion it gives me such a fantastic feeling."

The father of two grown-up daughters says he has no regrets: "I've had great fun."

l Treasure Island, Pavilion Theatre, November 26-

January 18.