“He allows you to go to work”: Ray Winstone names the best director he’s ever worked with
If it wasn’t for Michael Caine, then Ray Winstone would be in with a good shot at being anointed as cinema’s most famous cockney, not that one of Hackney’s favourite sons has struggled to make a name for himself.
Since first breaking out in the late 1970s when the triple-whammy of That Summer, Scum, and Quadrophenia earned him a Bafta nomination for ‘Best Newcomer’, generated intense controversy, and rock opera fame respectively, he’s gone on to work with many of the biggest names in the industry.
His rough-and-tumble persona is one of the major reasons why he’s been in a constant state of employment for 40 years, but Winstone is far from a one-trick pony. He’s equally adept at drama as he exudes the intimidation factor in crime thrillers, while his comedy chops have always been underrated.
That level of versatility will keep anyone in-demand, and as a result Winstone has worked under some of the industry’s most famous filmmakers. Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Jonathan Glazer, Darren Aronofsky, Gore Verbinski, and Robert Zemeckis are just some of them, even if he wouldn’t call any of them the best.
In fact, the finest director Winstone has ever worked with isn’t just known primarily for their on-screen exploits, but they’ve only helmed one solitary feature. What a feature it was, though, with Nil by Mouth a viciously bleak drama plagued by self-destruction, despair, and addiction. Written, directed, and produced by Gary Oldman, it’s been a loss to cinema that he’s never felt the urge to return behind the camera.
When asked by Shortlist to name his pick of the directorial bunch, Winstone didn’t even hesitate. “Gary Oldman’s the best director I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “He allows you to go to work, gets things out of you you probably didn’t even know you had. Maybe I’m talking from an actor’s point of view, although I think he was technically brilliant. Really great directors, you learn something from.”
In an act of tragic serendipity, Winstone’s first encounter with Oldman came when they both attended the funeral of Alan Clarke, who’d directed the former in Scum and the latter in The Firm. When they were reunited several years later, the pieces for their collaboration began falling into place.
“He had the script of Nil By Mouth, and I said I’d have a little look at it, in my cocky way,” Winstone explained. “I was blown away by the writing. He just took me in; somebody who’d written something, who knew something about it. Great dialogue, great stories to be told. He went anamorphic; he went large. I think that’s what Gary always wanted to do. But he kept that very British feel to that film.”
Forget Scorsese and Spielberg. Oldman is by far the best director Winstone has ever worked with, and he’s lucky he signed on for Nil by Mouth when he’s never returned to the filmmaking arena since.
