The actors Ray Winstone is desperate to work with: “I don’t give a fuck who’s there”
Ray Winstone could’ve been a boxer, but after he swaggered into an audition for Alan Clarke’s infamous Scum, he soon realised acting was the love of his life. Despite often getting into trouble at school, this proved to be a strength when it came to acting. His role in Scum as Carlin, who gets sent to a borstal and soon assaults a warden, required toughness that Winstone was more than capable of delivering, yet he also demonstrated a maturity in his ability to handle such intense material with little prior experience.
Scum was banned from the BBC due to its brutal depictions of violence, but Clarke cast Winstone in his feature-length film version of the television play instead. The actor was able to demonstrate his talents once again, leading to subsequent roles in films like Quadrophenia, Ladies and Gentlemen…The Fabulous Stains, and 13 episodes of the British television series Fox. Winstone struggled to find many film roles over the next decade, instead he mainly appeared on the small screen.
However, the 1990s proved to be another breakthrough, and he worked with actors-turned-directors like Gary Oldman on Nil By Mouth and Tim Roth on The War Zone. Alongside roles in Ladybird, Ladybird by Ken Loach, and Face by Antonia Bird, Winstone established himself as an actor who enjoyed challenging roles, often in a social realist or gritty British setting. From here, his career continued to expand, resulting in Hollywood roles.
From The Departed to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Winstone can firmly say that he has achieved his goals of becoming a star. Yet, he is still full of ambitions to work with other actors and filmmakers, which he revealed in a 2013 interview with Port Magazine. Notably, he mentioned that he would love to work with Oldman and Roth again, whether that be alongside them in a film, or directed by them.
Winstone once told The Guardian how important Oldman’s Nil By Mouth was to him, claiming that it “changed things.”
He added, “Until then I didn’t really know what I was doing. But with that film I saw that I might have something a bit different, a way of working that was my own. And that not every baddie has to be just the robber, the gangster, the brute. They can have a kindness or gentleness, too.”
The actor would also love to work with some of Hollywood’s most iconic stars, like Meryl Streep. Winstone joked with Port Magazine that as much as he would “love to work” with her, he would probably “just kiss her to death.” Considering that she is known as one of the greatest actors of all time – even holding the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any performer – it’s no surprise that Winstone would love to work alongside Streep.
He also mentioned some other Hollywood icons, “Robert Duvall, [Daniel] Day-Lewis, [Robert] De Niro,” all of whom are legendary actors. Interestingly, Winstone actually replaced De Niro in the film Edge of Darkness after he dropped out of the role. At the end of the day, Winstone isn’t too fussed about who he is working with if he likes the script and the filmmaker enough. “But you know what, I don’t give a fuck who’s there. I just want to go to work and do the thing.”
