The three movies that make Ray Winstone cry: “Absolutely breaks my heart”
Typecasting can regularly be a double-edged sword for any actor who finds themselves in danger of being shoehorned into a particular box, but Ray Winstone doesn’t have any issues with being one of the industry’s go-to tough guys.
It’s not always the easiest role to play, at least with any kind of gusto. It might seem easy to simply throw a few punches, screw up your meanest mug and expect the offers to come flooding in, but you need to be able to conjure real menace to become a legend of the tough guy scene. Winstone managed to do that instantly, but as well as being a boxer in his younger years, Winstone brought something else to the party: emotion.
The barrel-chested cockney has remained in demand for decades, with the very traits and characteristics that instigated his breakthrough continuing to serve him well to this day. That’s not to say he can’t play relatable, emotional, and vulnerable characters, but there’s a lot to be said about any performer sticking to what they’re good at.
From his searing turn in Scum to going through the motions as a Marvel Cinematic Universe villain in Black Widow, Winstone has turned his bespoke brand of no-nonsense shithousery into an artform. It’s allowed him to work with Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, and Robert Zemeckis to name a few, but don’t let his exterior distract from the fact he can be a right old softie.
Cinema has the power to extract almost every emotion from its audience in one way or another, and while it’s at odds with his established persona, Winstone had no issues admitting that several movies have reduced him to a quivering wreck of emotional distress.
Admittedly, he couldn’t remember the name of the first one, but he did say “it was Walter Pidgeon in it, and it’s about a guy who loses his memory.” Winstone recalls that the character “gets knocked down by a bus when he’s off somewhere with the woman he loves,” before the love interest ends up becoming his secretary and they fall in love all over again.
It’s when Winstone recalls the final scene’s dialogue that the film becomes clear, though, with Greer Garson calling out for Ronald Colman’s Smithy at the end of 1942’s Random Harvest. He couldn’t recall the name of the movie that left him in floods of tears, but it’s easy enough to figure out.
There’s something special about the thought of Winstone letting out a few salty tears, perhaps curled up under a blanket, watching some dusty old movies. And his love for the classics doesn’t end there.
He does at least remember the title of the second, telling Brett Goldstein that David Lean’s 1944 drama This Happy Breed spoke to him on a personal level. Robert Newton’s Frank Gibbons returns home from the First World War and moves into a new home with his family, and the story follows the clan through the decades before culminating on the dawn of the Second World War in 1939.
“Just this thing of this family breaking up and having to move away, it just absolutely breaks my heart,” he admitted, before taking a swift detour and naming Raging Bull as the third feature with the ability to turn him into a quivering husk. There is background, though, with Winstone’s background as a boxer creating an emotional connection to the rise and fall of Jake LaMotta, even if he acknowledges “it’s quite diverse films” that bring a tear to his eye.
The latter is perhaps the most obvious example of an actor sticking to type. There’s no movie that would have been better for Winstone than the Scorsese epic. But it goes to show that, despite all his tough-guy bravado, underneath it all, Winstone is just a big softie.
The movies that make Ray Winstone cry:
- Random Harvest
- This Happy Breed
- Raging Bull
