Ray Winstone: “I’ll use my vote when I’ve got someone I believe in or trust”

When you think of British hardmen in cinema, one of the first names likely to spring to mind is Ray Winstone. Known for performances in Nil by Mouth, Sexy Beast, and Beowulf, he’s just as much of a character offscreen as he is on camera. But after speaking with the actor, that preconceived notion I had is completely eradicated. When Ray Winstone joins me over Zoom from a swanky London hotel, the actor is, surprisingly, in good spirits, considering he’s on the home stretch of a week-long press run. He’s looking typically suave in a sophisticated grey suit and a pair of black spectacles, and he sounds just as excited to answer my questions as he was in interviews at the beginning of the run I’d watched/read in preparation. In all honesty, I can’t help but crack a smile as I first hear that iconic gravelly cockney twang traversing through my laptop’s speakers as the actor asks me about my day whilst clutching on a vape. He may say it how it is, but Winstone is an old-school gentleman, which is quite fitting, considering he’s here to promote his new series, The Gentlemen.

The Netflix series – a spin-off on Guy Ritchie’s uber-successful 2020 crime flick but featuring new characters – sees Eddie Horniman (Theo James) unexpectedly inherit his father’s sizable country estate, only to discover it’s part of a cannabis empire. Winstone plays Bobby Glass, a career criminal from the East End of London who founded an industrial cannabis empire, while Kaya Scodelario is Susie Glass, Bobby’s effortlessly stylish and steely daughter who runs the day-to-day business of the empire. It’s everything you want from a Ritchie caper and more.

Throughout his career, Winstone has worked under the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Gary Oldman. However, while the 67-year-old may seem like a perfect fit for a Ritchie project, this is the first time he has worked with the English director. Over four decades into his career, Winstone is still ticking off firsts, and despite admittedly falling out of love with his craft at times, his acting chops are as strong as ever. It’s difficult to imagine a world where we don’t see Winstone on our screens. He’s become a part of the furniture in global and British cinema, and considering the enthusiasm he displayed throughout our chat (and in his latest role), he will be for many years. 

Here, we sit down with Winstone to get the low-down on everything from his experience working with Ritchie to his biggest fears and more across 20 questions.

HUNGER: Hey Ray, thanks for chatting with us and congrats on your new series, The Gentlemen! What can you say about the experience of filming the show?

Ray Winstone: Well, with Guy Ritchie, you know what you’ll get entertainment-wise. And because it’s Netflix and it’s eight episodes, even though it goes along as a gallop, you’ve got more time to develop the characters because of that longer amount of time rather than being in a film. For me, it’s about learning the script and the character, turning up on set, knowing you’re going to work, and sometimes [the script] changes. We get dialogue to learn, and there are chunks of it, but that can all change. But it’s a good thing because it makes it better. If you change something, it’s got to be better, and it was. And because we’d done our homework, we were ready for that, and away we went. It was organised chaos in a way, but it was great. 

And were there any memorable moments on set that really stood out to you?

RW: Yeah, I think the first day, we’re turning up, and there’s snow on the ground, and we’re having a barbeque – but we’re in a prison. Which was quite weird, but you understand you’ve got to buy into it. Once you realise that the situation isn’t based fully in reality, you’re going to enjoy it and it gives you a little bit more freedom. There are no rules in a way.

In what ways do you relate to your character of Bobby Glass? And in what ways are you very different? 

RW: Well I’m a father, I’ve got three daughters, and in [The Gentlemen], I’ve got a daughter and a son. And the daughters, as they do in life, seem to favour their father and sons are very much like their mothers. In the series, I probably thought my son was gonna run the business after me or nurture it, but it doesn’t turn out that way – he’s more of the muscle. It’s the daughter who is the brains and takes over while her Dad’s in prison. In one way, he’s fearful because she’s the daughter, and he loves her and wants her to be safe. He doesn’t always agree with her methods, but she’s learnt them from her father. So, I think on the sly, which he wouldn’t tell her necessarily, but he’s, in a perverse sort of way, very proud of her.

Bobby’s a drug kingpin… What can you say about the process of understanding the character? How was the research process of getting into the headspace of a character like that?

RW: It’s a business to him. It’s a family business, and it puts food on the table. If you try to look at it morally, what they’re doing is totally wrong. He [Bobby] says, “We don’t sell powder,” as if that’s a moral stand. It’s a totally hypocritical way of going about your business.

Is there anything you’d like audiences to know about the character or the series as a whole that they might not see at first glance? 

RW: Hopefully, we don’t have to spell it out for them. This is what it is, and you’re either buying into that, or you’re not. And I think it’s proven that a Guy Ritchie film does that for you. Now we’ve got the luxury of having eight episodes, so you can be with the characters a little bit longer.

You just mentioned Guy Ritchie, and it’s your first time working with him. How would you describe that experience as a whole? 

RW: It’s been a very different kind of experience. In my career, I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with some great directors that I really love. Working with Guy was a different experience because, on set, it can all change in a moment. Of course, you don’t always have to follow the script. You can improvise and mess things around, but with Guy, the whole thing can change. It keeps you on your toes.

Is there any role in particular you always carry with you – a character who has always stuck in your mind? 

RW: Not particularly, but I’ve had a lot of roles I loved. With Sexy Beast, I loved playing Gary. He was more of a lover, and he wasn’t a gangster – he was a thief, and his love was Deedee. And 44 Inch Chest is about a normal man, really, who overloves someone, and jealousy eats away, so those two parts stick out for me. 

If you could play any character throughout history, and gender was no barrier, who would it be? 

RW: William Blake. I’m quite fascinated by him. Obviously, he’s a brilliant artist, but I think he was a little bit more than that. I’ve got an idea about how to [play him] as well, but I may be getting a bit old now!

How do you still have the hunger to continue acting even decades into your career?

RW: To be completely honest, putting food on the table. There are times when you don’t enjoy the work, and I’m sure that happens to anyone in their career, whatever they do. You don’t enjoy the work, and you think you’ve come to the end of it because you’re not loving it anymore. I’ve been lucky enough that something’s come along that’s whetting the appetite again, and it’s given me that new lease on life.

Looking back, what would you say has been the most surreal moment of your career so far? The biggest pinch-me a moment?

RW: My first teacher in film and cinema was Alan Clarke. I took everything Alan said on board about believing and being as real as possible when you’re performing, for me to look at you and not see acting but see someone talking and telling a story. Bless him, he passed away, and It was at his funeral that I met Gary Oldman. It was almost like someone passing on the baton. Then we met after, and Gary brought the script along for Nil by Mouth, so it was a surreal moment, in a way, because Gary worked with Alan as well. In the early days, they’d done some stuff together, and I did as well. Meeting him at Alan’s funeral and then having the script passed on was quite surreal.

I was reading that you have a home in Sicily. Would you still count London and England as where you feel most at home? 

RW: I’m a London boy, but I’m not living in London right now. I live in Essex. I remember when I was a kid in the East End, Essex went all the way into the East End back then, and someone came up with the bright idea of changing all the names. Crazy, could’ve spent the money on something else. But I still live in Essex, and I’ve got a place abroad in Sicily because when it’s raining here, and my old bones are hurting, I can get a bit of sun on me!

Compared to when you were growing up, how do you think London has changed?

RW: When I was a kid… I’m sounding like an old person ‘ere! All the way down to St. Paul’s, from the East End, there were bombed houses because they built Berlin and Munich before we built London again. And that was a way of sealing their friendship with the Germans in Europe. And then I saw London being built with some really strange buildings and architecture. But it was never lit properly. It was never lit. And I remember when I was doing The Sweeney, we shot a lot around the city, and I know the city very well anyway – London is probably one of my favourite places to be. But we were on top of a building and were talking about going, and we were looking across at St Paul’s in one direction, and then the East End was in another direction, North London was over there, and the buildings were lit beautifully. For the first time, you could see the beauty of the city.

What would you say is the thing you love most about London and the thing you dislike the most?

RW: Christ, the traffic. I hate the traffic. It really stops me from coming up here more. And just the thought of getting squashed on a tube. Sometimes it can take you an hour and a half to get to the West End, but it takes you another hour and a half to get where you’re going. The traffic’s loaded, it’s a one-way street, and they close another street, and you’re literally fucked. You’ve got to go all the way round to come back to somewhere and that drives me insane. 

But what do I like about London? It’s just a beautiful city. They’ve kept a lot of the old buildings and kept it raw. It’s really great where the Bank of England is and all those little alleyways around it. The architecture down there and around the back of Spitalfields is just wonderful. 

What’s a bad habit you wish you could kick?

RW: Well, do you know what? I stopped smoking last year. I got in the car one night, and I bought a packet of fags, lit a cigarette, and just went, “What am I doing? I don’t even like it. So I threw the box out of the window – littering, by the way, don’t do that! I’ve never smoked a cigarette since. I’ve got a vape for when I’m working, but I’ve found it pretty easy to give up. I haven’t had a drink in about four weeks, either. What would I like to give up now, though? I think I’ve done it. The cigarettes would’ve been my wish, and I’ve done that now.

If Ray Winstone ruled the world for a day, what would go down?

RW: Do you know what? I don’t vote. My right to vote is not to vote. I’d use my vote for someone I believe in, but there’s no one I believe in. People say to me, “You’ve got to use your right to vote.” No, I fucking ain’t. I’ll use my vote when I’ve got someone I believe in or can trust. In any other job in the world, If you turn up and don’t do your job or keep promises, then you get fired. They [politicians] all say they’re gonna do this, they’re going they’re gonna do that – and not one of them brings it to the table. They should be held accountable. They don’t represent the people – you, me and everyone else. They represent themselves. If everyone in the country never voted, they’d have to change something.

If you could go back in time and watch one film for the first time, what would it be?

RW: Mary Poppins. I love Mary Poppins. I love British movies like that and The Vikings. One of the greatest films I’ve ever seen is Once Upon a Time in America. Because every time I watch it, it’s something new to me. And what I get out of the film and what it means. It’s a brilliantly made film.

What’s the most memorable celebrity encounter you’ve ever had?

RW: I was walking down Piccadilly, looking down the street at night. It was full of theatres and people, and I bumped into this guy. I looked up, and it was Gerald Ford, Ex-President of the United States, and I stepped back. I realised there was a group of big guys there, and I said, “Oh, excuse me, Mr President, sorry,” I looked to his side, and there was Bob Hope. I said, “Excuse me”, and he said, “Hello, it’s fine,” and I walked on. I got down the end of the street, and I went, “Fuck me, that was the Ex-President of the United States and Bob Hope.” I thought I was off me nut or something. But it was them, and that was really surreal.

Apart from that moment, has there ever been a time you’ve felt starstruck?

RW: Bobby Moore. Where I come from, they used to look up to gangsters and people like that. But then it all changed with Bobby Moore. He’d become captain of England, and it was just a much more beautiful image than worshipping gangsters. I met Bobby on a couple of occasions, and he always had time to talk to people. I was quite starstruck by him, but then he’d make you feel relaxed, and you’d forget about it all.

What would you say is your biggest fear? Any phobias?

RW: If I’m standing on top of a cliff, I’m quite alright until someone stands next to me. Then I’ll be worried for them and not for me! I’m not great with heights, but I can go on an aeroplane and love every minute of it. I love geography, and I love maps, so I’m kind of working out where I am.

I used to be quite scared of spiders, but I was in Australia and got bitten by a redback (black widow). I picked this chair up, got bit, and didn’t know what it was at the time. My hand was all swollen up. This is out in the bush in a place called Winton, and they took me to the local doctor in this town. He said, “Yeah mate, you’ve been bitten by a redneck.” I went, “What, a spider?” I shit myself. And he said, “Yeah, have a look at it.” And there’s a red line going up my ear. And I said, “You’re going to give me the serum?” He said, “No, the serum will kill you.” So I was thinking, right, what do I do then?!

He says, “Watch the red line, and if it gets near your elbow, I’m going to give you the serum.” I said, “But you just told me that’d kill me!” Now that’s Aussie humour for you. But I’ve never been frightened of spiders since.

And finally, how would you describe The Gentleman in just a few words?

RW: It’s a ride. It’s a Guy Ritchie show, and it’s quite a ride, kid.

The Gentlemen is now streaming on Netflix