Ray Winstone

0:06Welcome to This Cultural Life, a series in which leading artistic figures discuss the influences and experiences that most inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson and my guest in this episode is the actor Ray Winstone, a schoolboy boxing champion. He built a reputation playing tough working class characters after being cast in the Borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winston won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic, abusive husband in the film Nil by Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast, in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed and Anthony Minghella's American Civil War film Cold Mountain.

0:51On television, he's played Henry VIII, Magwitch in Great Expectations, and most recently an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentleman. Ray Winston, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you very much. You were born in East London in 1957. What are your earliest memories of home life growing up? My early life was tin baths, you know, outside toilet. Right. They were the days, and when you used to walk to school, there was all bombed houses. There was from the war. It was 12 years after the war. And you played in those bombsites? Yeah. That was the playground, you know. I remember one of our mates had an accident on the bombsite, you know, and the police used to come on, the old Bobby, local Bobby, he'd just give you a clip round the ear hole and send you home, you know.

1:38It's for planning there. But there was a bike on there and the spoke went in his eye and knocked his eye out. And so when we went to school, we used to go for him. All the kids used to stand outside waiting for him and we'd watch his mum put in the glass eye. That was the early days. but you kind of realise from that part of London, because it was the docks down the road, you know, Silvertown, Canning Town and all that, when you went on a Red Rover as a kid, you know, 10 years away, 11 years away, you was going all over London on a Red Rover ticket. You could do it then. I'm not saying there weren't bad people around, we just didn't know about it because news reports, you weren't getting it on the news.

2:19So a happy childhood. Yeah, and it was a freedom. It was a freedom about moving around. What did your parents do? My dad was like my uncles. A lot of my uncles were in the meat market. Smithfield? Yeah. My dad, he was like in the meat market to start with, then ended up in the fruit game, you know. Uncles were in the fish market and the meat market. So, you know, there was always parcels. You know, we were very, very lucky, you know, although people probably weren't earning a lot of money. I think the average wage was about 16 quid a week. So you always ate well? Yeah. And you moved to Enfield in North London at the age, I think at about eight.

2:56So did that feel... Eight and nine, ten, something around. But that came about because without my dad knowing, see, I couldn't read till I was about 11 properly, you know. The education where I was was two years behind. I realised that when I moved to the school in North London, you know. But my mum actually bought a house. She was very savvy, you know, just on the borders of Winsmore Hill and Enfield. bought this house, a George Reid house, for four and a half grand, which was a lot of money in them days. My dad didn't even know. She said, we're moving. And he went, all right. Because it had been happening, renting accommodation, the old man.

3:34But if you're moving from West Ham, from Plasto, from the East End, to leafy Winchmore Hill, the suburbs, did it feel like a cultural change? Yeah, absolutely. I just felt like I was a bit different over there. It was like alien. Were you treated differently? Yeah, I think so, because, you know, I wasn't very intellectual at school. Did you speak differently to the other kids? Even though you've only moved, what, three or four miles north? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I missed home.

4:08On This Cultural Life, Ray Winston, my guests choose the most important influences and experiences that have inspired their own creative lives. And your first choice for this programme is boxing. You joined the famous Repton Boxing Club in East London, I think at the age of 12. Who got you into boxing in the first place? I think it seems to me, I don't know whether this is correct, but in a lot of cultures, especially in North London, they talk about football and birds. That's what guys do, they talk about football and girls. I think in the East End they talk about boxing and girls. Boxing for me was, my dad, he boxed.

4:44My grandfather boxed. Everyone around us, you know, uncles and they all boxed. It was expected. It was almost like you had to learn how to look after yourself. But I think the difference with boxing as a sport is it teaches you something else. It teaches you respect for your opponent. It teaches you, being in a boxing club is, I don't know how you can explain it. It's like everyone in that club comes from all walks of life, all creeds, all religions, and that goes out the window. As you walk through the door, it all goes out the window. Cultural melting pot. Yeah, and don't even think about it.

5:26That's your club, mate. That's your friend. You're all there to do the same thing. You all spar together. You work together. You play together. And for me, if the world was running like a boxing club, we wouldn't have any problems. Was it discipline as well? Was that what was important? Yeah, I mean, I wasn't the greatest trainer in the world, I have to be honest. But I loved the sparring, and that's when you kind of learn what it's all about. I remember my first senior boxing match. I'd boxed as a junior quite a bit. And when you turn 17, you become a senior. Now, that means you can fight people up to the age of 35.

6:04Now, when I was 17, I looked like I was 12. I didn't have a hair on my legs or anything, you know. But I remember walking towards the ring in this first fight as a senior. And I looked in the ring and there was this guy. He had tattoos. I forget, he had tattoos and hairy legs, like a tarantula. And he was a man. You know, I'm still a boy, you know. My God, you know, the size of him. And you know at that point whether you're going to win the fight or you're not going to win the fight. and I think that's the same for every fighter. Before you've thrown a punch. Yeah, before you've even got in the ring.

6:39But there's something about boxing that you learn and you carry this on into life that you have to dig deep and find something else to overcome that. Well, this is what I was going to ask. What are the transferable skills that you take from the gym, from the boxing ring to the theatre stage or the film set? It's that thing of picking up a script and it's a bit alien to you. The penny has to drop somewhere And the penny can only drop when you take the deep breath after all the doubts in your head and you go, I can't do this. I can't do it. And then something inside you goes, yes, I can. I can do that.

7:18Because they can't hang you for it. If you get it wrong, OK, that's happened. So it's self-confidence then? It's a self-belief? It's a self-belief. It's a self-belief that you have to find. You have to believe in yourself before anything else. The thing is, in the boxing ring, if you get it wrong, you get hurt. Well, it's one-on-one. You see, it's one-on-one. But what happens? What's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that has happened? You get beat, get knocked out. No, but on the film set, on the stage. You get beat, you get knocked out. No, but it feels the same. Does it? When you actually play a part and you haven't got it right, when you go and watch the film, when this happens, you go and watch the film, you feel like you've been knocked out.

7:58Do you not instinctively know as you're delivering the lines whether you're nailing it? No, not always. I'm a believer in the camera does lie. It does lie because I can feel all the emotions in the world. If you don't understand what that shot is and what they want from that shot, and that's up to you to find out, then you can get it totally, totally wrong. And I have done. That's when it feels like you've just been hit on the chin and you go over. Because there's only one person to blame there. You can say, oh, the director could have marked my car. could have said that you can only blame yourself and you must blame yourself as well.

8:31And when you are the particular films that you either, you want to just kind of forget on... No, but it's a bit unfair because... Or performances. Yeah, but it's a bit unfair to say because for me, there's other people who really believe in that film and I wouldn't want to actually take anything away from them. I read that you fought, I think, 88 times, you won 80 fights. Yeah. So you were a good boxer. I was all right. I was a novice. I had other things I wanted to do. To be a champion or be a pro, you've got to have something extra in you. In 2017, you were in the film Jawbone, which was written and starred another former boxer.

9:08Johnny Harris. Johnny Harris. And you were playing a veteran gym owner and trainer. Were you drawing on your own memories of father figures in the ring? I was drawing on Tony Burns, who was my trainer. He was the guy that ran... Mickey Carney, who ran Fitzroy Lodge as well, who was Johnny's trainer. I knew both men. two men, for John and for me, that actually guided us. Going to a boxing club is not about becoming a champion. You find something else. These men, in a very cold, dry way, they never give you an inch. They only say what needs to be said. And if you ain't done something right, they let you know.

9:45I actually enjoyed that. It's like my dad said to me once. It's old school. he phoned me up and you don't get much well done son you know or arms around you you know with that old generation you know and I'd done Sweeney Todd and I got a phone call from the old man he's phoned up and he said hello son I went hello dad he went Ray Ray he said I've just seen Sweeney Todd I went yeah I thought here it comes right he said that's the best thing you've ever done he said that was wonderful for. And so I'm shocked, you know, surprised. And in the same breath, he said, it's better than all the other shit you do.

10:32So it was like putting your arms around you, kissing you and then headbutting you at the same time. But that's, that generates, and that makes me laugh, because I know what he actually means to say, you know, I know what he means. And that was a film version that you did in 2006. Yeah, it was a one-off. Not the musical. No, it's not singing from me, old darling. Have you ever sung? Yeah. You can sing? Yeah, I used to be. I have too many cigars now. When you were 17, you enrolled in drama school. What took you there in the first place? I think my mum and dad keep me off the streets. I'd done a school play.

11:11The only reason I'd done a school play is that I fancied one of the girls in the play, and I thought, I'll get in there. What was the play? It was called Emule and the Detectives. and I played the newspaper boy. Anyway, they'd come to see it, which I didn't want them to do, you know, because I wasn't there to be an actor. I got some laughs and, you know, what I was playing about, playing up a bit, I suppose, you know. And they thought, ooh, that's good. They said, do you want to go to college, drama college? I went, yeah, all right. I thought, you know, a bit fun, something I've never done, you know.

11:44And I had to go to Hammersmith for this college and it was 900 quid a term, three terms a year. A lot of money. And I got expelled after a year, quite rightly so. What did you do? I just felt I was kind of not part of it all, you know, and the headmistress was not nice. She was really kind of a bit of a bully, you know. So I sabotaged her car, done all her tyres and that. It was horrible, horrible thing to do. And I got grassed up by one of the mates there, you know. But you lasted a year? Yeah, I lasted a year. Did you, when you were learning how to act, you know, just the basic learning? There was a couple of teachers there that were really good, like Bill Hepper, and they kind of put up with me a little bit.

12:27I was a little bit different, you know. Did you find the discipline, and it goes back to boxing again, the discipline of learning lines and the choreography of moving around stage? I was a bit out of my depth, really. Culturally, they were all kids, you know, it was about elocution and all that kind of stuff, and I kind of fought against it. I don't know why. I think it's like an inverted snobbery in a way, you know. Do you think you doubled down on the accent? Probably I wouldn't lose it. But the day I got expelled is the day I went to the BBC because I went with all the kids I knew there who were going up for a job.

13:00And that was scum. And I wasn't supposed to be there. So without being expelled and without being an arsehole, I wouldn't have been in the building, you know.

13:17Your next choice for This Cultural Life are the 1960s films that portrayed working class British lives. In particular, you've chosen Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, directed by Carol Rice, starring Albert Finney, and also This Sporting Life, directed by Lindsay Anderson, starring Richard Harris, of course. When would you have first seen these films? Because when they were released, you would have been too young, I presume. Probably late 60s, early 70s. I probably saw it on the telly. Films have always been escapism. We used to go to pictures every Wednesday. My dad would pick me up from the market from school and we'd go and watch a film.

13:52He'd sleep and I'd watch 633 Squadron or whatever was on at the time. He was asleep because he'd been up there? Yeah, he'd been in the market since 2 o 'clock. And then once a month we'd go up the West End to watch a movie. That was the big night out. We'd go and see Beckett with O'Toole and Richard Burton, and Zulu, go and see that in Cinerama. So we've got movies, we love films, you know, like a lot of people. And when these films come in like what we call kitchen sink dramas, all of a sudden people are making films about, you know, I know Saturday Night Sunday Morning was set up north, but it's about working people, it's about us, played by people that come from them places and probably written by people that come from them places because they were so bang on the money.

14:36No use working every minute, God sends I could get through in half the time If I went like a bull But they'd only slash me wages So they can get stuffed I'd like to see anybody try to grind me down That'd be the day What I'm out for is a good time All the rest is propaganda All of a sudden I wasn't just watching A Man For All Seasons Which is wonderful writing But I was watching films about us what we're about in a way, you know. I think somewhere in the back of me he thought, you know, I could do that. Were you looking particularly at the actors, at the leading men? And because you could identify with...

15:17I think Rachel Roberts was going Saturday Night's Day. It was wonderful anyway, you know. But Finney, I've always liked... Like I'd like Burton. I love Burton's voice, you know. I mean, he's a working-class boy. He comes out of the Rhonda Valley, I think. But his voice, when he speaks, it's something about it. and I was lucky enough to watch him when he was making 1984. A mate of mine was working on a film and I was working down the road and I came to see him for the day and him and John Hurt do that scene where they're looking over the rolling hills. I'm standing behind a camera and I'm watching Burton and John Hurt, who I was lucky enough to work with three times, I think I worked with John, who was a wonderful actor, John, bless him, but you just couldn't help listening and watching Burton, that voice.

16:01And I think he was half cut half the time. but it didn't matter. You know, this guy was something special. Richard Burton, Albert Finney, Tom Courtney, working-class actors who were telling new kinds of... Tom Courtney. Yeah, telling new stories in the 60s, as you say. Do you worry about the opportunities in film and theatre for young working-class potential actors? No, and I'll tell you why, it goes round in circles. I came along at a time when it was working-class. That was my luck. And it was up to me to grab the ball by the horn and I was lucky enough the working class writers were coming along and then all the posh guys, as we call them, were kind of elbowed back to the theatre.

16:42Away you go. Well, then it was their turn next and then we have to recreate ourselves. Now, for the young actors coming through, it's a matter of timing. What you have to do then is, OK, there's no work for you. Go and write it. Create it yourself. You know, if you've got something good, eventually it's going to be seen. But I think the worry is that the building blocks, the foundation is not being laid down at a young age. Well, then you could argue that for the posh kid. You know, when he's not working, they say, well, the foundation's not there for me anymore. Yeah, but at the posh kid's school, the curriculum includes drama and includes art.

17:19Yeah, but you've still got to be a good actor. You've still got to be a good writer. You've still got to be a good producer. You've still got to be a good director. So I think we should get rid of all that shit about, oh, I'm this guy and I'm that guy and I came from them roots. If you're good, you're good. Get on with it. It's a bit harsh and I probably don't know what I'm talking about half the time and I'm very lucky to be grafting, you know. But at the end of the day, it's not given to you on a plate. You've got to go and find it. You mentioned Peter O'Toole, you mentioned Beckett in which he played Henry II.

17:53Also in the notes that you sent us, you mentioned Lawrence of Arabia. I mean, Peter O'Toole is in a way a surprising choice as a sort of a cultural influence for you. I mean, very different looking, a very different sounding actor to you, to the way that you portray many of your characters. What was it about O'Toole that you particularly... The vulnerability in him. You know, when I first saw Lawrence of Arabia, I must have been a really young kid. I didn't understand him as a character. You know, his sexuality. And years later, when you go back and revisit it, the penny dropped. Ah. And he had this kind of gentleness and a vulnerability about him.

18:31And I think that's a strength for an actor, to have that kind of vulnerability. We've seen it in so many of the roles that you've played. I mean, we think first and foremost of the hard men, the geezers, the gangsters, whoever. But there's so many of the roles where we see that. Are you a very emotional person? Yeah, I guess so. I've got three daughters, you've got to be. Yeah, I like to find that. I mean, the gangster I'm playing at the moment, isn't that he can't be you know to be where he is is a is a brutality you mean when you say you're playing at the moment Bobby Glass oh in The Gentleman yeah but in a lot of stuff you know sort of sexy beast and that there's a difference he's not a gangster you know it's a love story and the fear is for his wife not for him you know and if you are playing the bad guy it's in the page everything you say is you're the bad guy so it's I think it's as simple but there's, play him as a good guy.

19:28Because the words and everything, his actions within it, will tell you he's the bad guy. I think that's more scary. You know, the person who smiles at you and actually, he's a nice fella. And the next minute he's grating someone. You know, I'm not saying you do that all the way through, but it's actually a kind of starting point, you know? And that way you find the emotions within that. Playing a gangster like Bobby Glass, there is none of that. Bobby Glass, the gangster that you play in The Gentleman, in a Guy Ritchie series. So, I mean, in fact, I think it's the first time you've worked with him.

20:04Yeah, it is, yeah. Which is surprising in itself. Yeah, probably, yeah. But he's a gangster who is running his drugs empire from within prison, but it's not a prison that anybody would recognise. No, I think he owns it. I think he's actually bought the land, built the prison, and he's in his own prison. He's having sushi served to him and he's sitting and directing operations from within a sauna. Why wouldn't you? It looks like it was a lot of fun to play, at least. Yeah, it is, actually. I was a bit dubious about it when I first read it. Because I thought, it was ridiculous. I mean, who in their right mind?

20:38But then I watched Guy's stuff, you know, and there is a little bit up there. He's got his own style, you know. And I went and met him and we had a sit-down and a little chat. and I went, yeah, I'll get it. And this is the second series of The Gentleman that he's on at the moment. What about the long-form television format? What does that offer you as an actor? I don't know because this is nothing like I've ever done before because you're doing the scene, you read the script, you know the story, and when you watch it, it's totally different because you're filmed on it and they're moving it about.

21:13What you can only do is you go in and play what you're playing, your character in that moment. And he'll take that out and you'll mess around with it and put it where he wants to put it. And you end up with that and you go, do you know what? If anyone told me that at the beginning, I wouldn't have done this, right? Because, you know, as an actor, you want to create the character. The editor's creating it. Do you know the whole arc of the story? No. Not an idea. So therefore, if you don't know the ending, you don't know how it's going to pan out, does that affect the performance? No, because you just play for the day.

21:46I could pick up the next bit and I'm dead. Good night. Gone. It's all right, and that's the surprise. That's fine.

22:00The next major influence on your career, Ray Winston, is the film and television director Alan Clarke. Oh, yes. Who, in 1977, casts you in the lead role in a BBC Play For Today drama called Scum, which was set in a really violent borstal for young offenders. How did you get the role? The day I got expelled from college, I was going to the BBC with my friends who were up for a job and the job was scum. And I sat outside in the reception and I was talking to the rather attractive young girl behind the counter. And you had just been expelled? Yeah, I'd been expelled. So the boys were going in and meeting Alan Clarke and all that.

22:35But I was quite happy talking to the receptionist. She was a very beautiful young lady. and she said, are you going in to meet Mr Clark? And I went, no, no darling, no, I'm just waiting for me to meet him. She said, go in and meet him. I went, all right. So I was the last one in and Alan was just about to clear up and go and I walked in and I didn't know what I was going to do. He said, who are you? I said, I'm Ray Winston, I'm just with all the boys, come in, talk to you? And we sat down, we'd just had a talk and he was laughing and I was laughing and I was telling him what happened to me that day and I'm just here with the boys I'm just going to go out and have a drink with the guys and we went alright nothing we said, he opened the door and I left because I was the last one he watched me walk down the corridor and I had kind of a boxer's bowl walking down the corridor like I didn't care and I got the job on the walk nothing to do with it we never read a script, we never looked at it In fact, the original Scum was written for a Glaswegian.

23:40Can you do an accent? No. I can't even speak English. Let me do a Glaswegian accent. Had you told him you'd just been expelled that day? Yeah. That probably helped. It might have done, yeah. I was laughing. It was like talking to another guy, you know what I mean? So when you get... Clark, he was that easy to talk to. And I think that was the genius of him. This is how your luck can change. How fate takes you down the road. If I'd have done this job with another director, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. The great thing about Alan Clark was he was a teacher. I don't know whether he knew he was teaching you.

24:13He was a manipulator. It was the way he talked to you, you know. He just whispered in your ear. And all of a sudden you're playing the scene very quiet. And then he'll tell you off. And you was heartbroken because the man you really liked told you off. And it upset you so much. And that's how you kind of play the scene. So he kind of knew how to press the right buttons. And it's stuff that I learned from him that later on in life, I had to, when I had to direct myself, because I wasn't getting any direction that I used, and took that a step further. If I was on a set where I wasn't getting that kind of direction...

24:50But you heard Alan Klug's voice in your head. In my head. But it got to the stage where I was doing sort of different genres that unless it was real, I couldn't find it. and I couldn't find where I was going with it. Scum is a really brutal depiction of the hierarchies of power within the Borstal. The play for today version was deemed too violent by the BBC, and it was shelved. I don't think it was shown until 1991. How disappointing was that for you at the time? I didn't care, because I retired. I'd done that, you know, because I didn't want to be an actor. What do you mean you retired? It was your first film.