Ray Winstone: Where I Come From, You Never Give Up

The recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, British acting veteran Ray Winstone, held a Masterclass at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, where he revealed a series of intriguing details from his rich career.

With a career spanning more than four decades, it is hard to imagine a better guest for the Masterclass program, an opportunity for direct exchange of knowledge and experience with acclaimed filmmakers at the Sarajevo Film Festival, than Ray Winstone. A veteran of British film and television, who made his debut in 1979 in Alan Clarke’s drama “Scum“ and has since collaborated with renowned directors such as Jonathan Glazer, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg, proved just that at his Masterclass at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.

This year’s recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, in a conversation moderated by Alissa Simon, recounted his journey from a young boxer in a poor London suburb to a celebrated actor, honored with awards including the British Independent Film Award and the International Emmy for Best Actor. A journey, he noted, that began - with rejection.

“Rejection is part of an actor’s life. The sooner you learn that, the better it is for you,” Winstone said, recalling his attempt to enroll in drama school. For his audition, he was required to perform a Shakespearean text, which, as a young man from East London, he did not fully understand—so he decided to interpret it in his own way. Out of a possible ten points, he was awarded one for performance, and zero for imagination.

“Zero for imagination!? They could have at least given me one point since I changed everything,” the actor still cannot quite understand how he was scored so low. But he did learn that rejection is not necessarily a bad thing.

“I thought, if they don’t want me, then I’ll go another way. To hell with it. Where I come from, you never give up, you just keep moving forward. After all, what is rejection? You haven’t disappeared, you’re not finished. For me, it was just motivation to prove, not only to them but also to myself, that I could do it,” said Ray Winstone.

And he really did take a different path. His acclaimed debut in Alan Clarke’s “Scum“ immediately introduced him as a distinctive actor whose characters were tough and abrasive, yet profoundly complex.

“My performance in that film had nothing to do with me—it was all thanks to Alan Clarke. He guided me and showed me everything. That was my acting school,” the veteran actor admitted.

Still, of all the directors and actors he has worked with, the best piece of acting advice Winstone ever received came from his wife, Elaine. While preparing for the punk film “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains”, he was offered the role of a singer, even though he knew absolutely nothing about singing.

“She simply told me: ‘You’re not a singer, you’re an actor. So act.’ And that was the best advice I ever got,” the British actor revealed.

And act he did - brilliantly. A series of outstanding films followed, including “Nil by Mouth“ and “The War Zone”. But it was in 2000, with Jonathan Glazer’s debut “Sexy Beast”, a story about a retired criminal forced into a bank heist, that Winstone gained worldwide recognition.

“How did we prepare for that film? With lots of vodka. And lying around on the beach in Spain,” Winstone said, drawing laughter with his response, before quickly adding, in all seriousness, how proud he remains of the film.

“It’s probably the only film where we didn’t change a single word of the script. Not that we didn’t try, but the moment we did, it just didn’t work. The screenplay was written like modern-day Shakespeare,” the British actor noted.

One of his most unforgettable roles is certainly in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film “The Departed”. Yet it took very little for him not to appear in the film at all—at least not as the mob enforcer he ended up portraying, but rather as a policeman.

“I met Marty, that’s what I call him, on a Sunday morning at a London hotel. He wanted me to play a cop, but I’m not a cop type. I told him that and suggested he give me a role that didn’t even exist in the script: a mob enforcer who would allow us to learn much more about the mob boss played by Jack Nicholson. Marty liked the idea, so he gave me the role, but also took my leather jacket. He liked the brown leather jacket I was wearing to our meeting, so my character ended up wearing it in the film,” Winstone revealed, sharing another small detail from his rich acting career.

Films like “The Departed” are becoming rarer, especially when it comes to Hollywood productions.

“Like so much today, it all comes down to selling tickets. Unfortunately, that’s the case worldwide. We all enjoy watching Marvel films, they’re fun, but the rest of the spectrum of cinema is disappearing. It’s the same with social media. Today, you have to be on it, because producers look at which actor has the bigger fan base when casting roles. I have to be on Instagram too, even though I don’t really want to be,” the veteran actor lamented.

As for the future, Winstone already has a number of roles lined up, including one in Guy Ritchie’s hit series “The Gentlemen”, but he doesn’t dwell on how successful they might be.

“You can’t think ahead about how a film will turn out. Sometimes you take a role just to pay the rent. Sometimes you expect a lot, and it ends up entirely different. That’s the nature of the beast we deal with. That’s the nature of acting,” Ray Winstone explained at his Masterclass at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.