Ray Winstone: In Profile
On good fortune and great directors and being a big Bollywood fan on the quiet.
I’m happy to admit I’ve been lucky. I was lucky when Alan Clarke cast me in Scum and I was lucky when Gary Oldman cast me in Nil By Mouth. Thanks to those films, and Nil By Mouth in particular, I have a career. I make a good living doing the thing I love. So, yes, I’ve been very lucky.
Don’t become an actor because you want to do it. Do it because you have to do it. There’s a bloody big difference.
People have got to get behind British film before America takes over the world. In other countries, New Zealand or Australia, you check into a hotel and they’ve a whole channel dedicated to local films. They’re not all great movies but it’s great to find people who are proud of local cinema. And it’s a damn sight better than six channels showing Men In Black 3, which is what you get in a lot of British and American hotels.
A man should be allowed to enjoy a cigarette. It’s not a lot to ask.
Opportunity sometimes knocks twice. We made Scum twice. First time, we made it as a TV drama for the BBC but it got banned because it was so controversial. So then we remade it for the cinema. In between making the two versions, me and the rest of the guys, like Phil Daniels and Ray Burdis, had learnt so much more about acting that we gave much better, more solid performances. Opportunities like that don’t happen often so you have to take advantage of them when they do come along.
Don’t be scared to steal from the greats. When we were making Robin Of Sherwood, me and Jason Connery “based” a punch-up on the famous fight between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man. Our thinking was this: if it was good enough for the Duke, it was good enough for us.
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