British actor Ray Winstone (“The Departed”), who is at the Sarajevo Film Festival to receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award for exceptional contributions to the art of cinema, sat down at the festival to talk through his decades in the industry. Asked about the changes he’s seen over the years, the actor said he feels the industry has “become a business.” He also dwelled on the difference between blockbusters, such as those from Marvel, and what he calls “cultural films.”
“It’s all about selling tickets,” he said. “We see what’s happening in Hollywood with Marvel and all that kind of stuff… There is room for it, and it’s fun, but it takes away from getting cultural films made, which are best for the actors, [and] are really good acting parts. It’s getting more and more difficult to do that. If you’re not on social media now, they might not even consider you for a movie because they want a fanbase to come with that.”
Winstone also briefly recalled his very own Marvel experience shooting 2021’s “Black Widow,” in which he played villain Dreykov. “I worked with this amazing director, Cate Shortland, and we worked on what my character was going to be. He was like a pedophile running around all these girls, and they’d become black widows. We used to get applauded on set. It was probably the best thing I’ve done for a really long time,” he said of the early shooting experience.
“Then I come home after finishing the job and get a call saying we need to do some reshoots,” he continued. “I say: how many scenes? [Cate] says ‘all of them.’ So I said she should recast [the role], but I was contracted, so I had to do it. I go back, they do my hair all nice, put me in the suit, and I couldn’t do it. I’d already done it. I thought, ‘I’m not doing it now. I’ve done it. That’s how it’s going to be.’ That’s rejection, you know? There’s nothing worse than doing something, leaving it on the floor, and then being told it’s not right.”
Back to social media, the actor said it affects young actors much more, but he still feels the pressure. “You have to go on Instagram, and I don’t want to go on fucking Instagram. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but if it brings people to the cinema and creates new jobs, then I’ll do it. But I’d like to see more cultural films being made, that’s where good cinema is. From my point of view, anyway.”
Another recent industry change that frustrates the veteran is the lack of contact between actors and directors during casting. “Casting today seems to be so different. My daughter is an actress and people don’t necessarily meet the actors anymore; directors don’t meet the actors anymore. Everything is done on a phone.”
“I can’t get my head around that because part of the chemistry of making a film or series is the chemistry between the director and the actor,” he emphasized. “I think it’s something we are losing more and more in England, and I think that’s very dangerous. We gotta look back at people sitting in a room with a director, not just reading the part but talking to one another. Some people are fucking terrible readers, but they can act, you know?”
Speaking about what he calls “cultural cinema,” Winstone talked at length about some of the highlights of his career working in independent films, such as Gary Oldman’s 1997 social realist drama “Nil by Mouth.” The actor called Oldman “the best director I’ve ever worked with.”
“Gary is probably one of the greatest actors to come out of our country. He wrote a script, and it was the best thing I had read at the time,” he recalled of first joining the project. “The film is about social issues and the places where we come from, and it was bang on the money. It’s about the underbelly of where I’m from. I don’t come from a family like that, but I’ve seen it and I heard it. It was a very brave bit of writing. When I read it, I got it.”
Another directorial debut that shaped Winstone’s career is Jonathan Glazer’s “Sexy Beast.” Speaking about the film, the actor said it was like “modern-day Shakespeare.” Of working with Ben Kingsley, the actor remembered having to wait for his co-star’s schedule to align so they could shoot the film, quipping about his Oscar-winning titular role in “Gandhi.”
“This ‘Gandhi’ turned up…” he said, amusingly, of that first meeting. “When you watch his performance as Gandhi and then in this film as a psychopath, it shows you the range of this man.” As for the film itself, Winstone said he was first attracted to it because he saw it as a “love story,” and he wanted to “be the lover” and be the person who is spoken to kindly and lovingly instead of the usual thugs and bad guys he played onscreen. “It’s nice. I kind of liked all that, there’s something beautiful about it.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the actor recalled playing the titular role on Robert Zemeckis’ “Beowulf,” calling the big CGI project “like theater comes to cinema.”
“‘Beowulf’ was totally different from anything I’ve ever done. You put a rubber suit on, you have no props, no costume, no set. You learn the script and rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. There were 360 cameras around you, and you play the whole scene in a take and shoot the whole film in six weeks. Everything we did in the film is in the film, it’s just painted after.”
Of working alongside Angelina Jolie in the project, Winstone called the American actor “fantastic to work with.” “What an actress. She’s not just beautiful, she can do the thing. And a good kisser as well,” he joked.
Winstone has quite a curriculum, having worked with directors such as Steven Spielberg, Anthony Minghella and Alan Clarke. During the conversation, the actor recalled first meeting another one of the greats: Martin Scorsese, who would come to direct him in “The Departed.”
“I went to meet him in London on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I was off playing another policeman, and I didn’t want to play a policeman. I sit down with Marty, I call him Marty now, and I said, ‘This Jack Nicholson character doesn’t have anyone to talk to, so how do you find out about him? So I’ll play his mate.’ We kind of had a conversation along those lines. That’s how it came about. I actually invited him for Sunday dinner, and he said he had other things to do [laughs]. That’s how things happen sometimes.”
As for what’s next, the actor is locked for the next season of Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen.” He will also soon be seen in Steven Waddington’s untitled Jimmy White biopic alongside Aneurin Barnard, which he revealed is currently being edited. “There are a few little things about the edit that need to be looked at. Barnard playing Jimmy White was fantastic. It’s a really brilliant [film] but just needs sharpening up to be ready to come out.”
