After filming a small part in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Scott worked with film and theatre director Karel Reisz in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, production of Long Day's Journey into Night taking the role of Edmund, the younger son, in the Eugene Neill play about a tortured American family in the early part of the 20th century. He won Actor of the Year at the Sunday Independent Spirit of Life Arts Awards 1998 and received an Irish Times Theatre Award 1998 nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Scott appeared in the small part of Michael Bodkin in the film Nora, with Ewan McGregor, and in a television adaptation of Henry James's The American, alongside Diana Rigg and Matthew Modine, before making his London theatre debut in Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol with Brian Cox at the Royal Court Theatre. He was then cast in the winning drama Longitude, opposite Michael Gambon, and the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Scott has described the working atmosphere on Band of Brothers as. In 2004, he was named one of European Film Promotions' Shooting Stars. After starring in My Life in Film for the BBC, he received his first Olivier award for his role in A Girl in a Car with a Man at The Royal Court, and the Theatregoers' Choice Award for his performance in the National Theatre's Aristocrats. He then created the roles of the twin brothers in the original Royal Court production of Christopher Shinn's Dying City which was later nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2006, he made his Broadway debut opposite Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy in the Music Box Theater production of The Vertical Hour written by David Hare and directed by Sam Mendes, for which he was nominated for a Drama League Award.