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Sun 31 August 2025 16:45, UK
There’s no doubt that the veteran British actor Ray Winstone is having a bit of a moment right now, and fully deserved it is too. He’s been at it since the late 1970s, providing some iconic moments and giving it his all for directors including Gary Oldman and Martin Scorsese.
Most recently he’s been seen doing fine work in the TV spin-off of Guy Ritchie’s gangland movie The Gentlemen on Netflix and going opposite Millie Bobby Brown on the streaming giant’s fantasy romp The Damsel.
But this week as he picked up a lifetime achievement award at the Sarajevo film festival, he confessed there’s still a legendary director that he has yet to work with.
That director is Gladiator’s Ridley Scott, the man who brought Alien to the big screen and introduced audiences to the magic of Blade Runner. Given the legendary director is now 87 there might not be a huge amount of time left for Winstone to get his wish, although Scott is defying ageing by being involved in no less than 19 upcoming projects as a producer.
As for a dream role that Winstone would like to take on he went slightly leftfield and told Variety about the lead part in an adaptation of Aussie rocker Nick Cave’s book The Death of Bunny Munro. He admitted: “I looked at it about 20 years ago and went, ‘I got it.’ They are going to do it, but I’m too old now, so I’ve missed that one. I would have loved to have done it, but it will be special.”
Matt Smith is about to be seen in that role in a Sky TV series of the novel, with the story told over six parts. Cave’s novel was originally published in 2009 and is about a door-to-door salesman who struggles to deal with his wife’s death, eventually heading out on a chaotic trip around Brighton with his young son.
Winstone meanwhile is hard at work on a biopic of the rock and roll snooker player Jimmy White, with the lead role being played by Dunkirk’s Aneurin Barnard. Winstone will also co-produce the sports film which apparently focuses on White trying to win the World Championship while confronting his demons on a dark night.
The Eastender will also be back for a second series of The Gentlemen on Netflix which began filming in May of this year. Guy Ritchie is back in the directing chair and the action will be shifted from the English countryside to the Italian Riviera, with guest appearances from the likes of Chris Eubank Jr.
Winstone has been a regular face on British screens as far back as 1979 when he played the lead role in Alan Clarke’s seminal borstal drama Scum. He’s possibly best known, however, for his shocking role in Gary Oldman’s 1997 film Nil By Mouth, for which he picked up a BAFTA for Best Leading Actor. It led to his being picked up by Hollywood and he worked with Scorsese as an enforcer in 2006’s The Departed, plus Steven Spielberg on the ill-fated fourth Indiana Jones movie, The Crystal Skull.
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