Ray Winstone
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What early memories does Ray Winstone share about growing up in post‑war East London?
Welcome to This Cultural Life, the 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 Winston. 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 Mingela's American Civil War film, Cold Mountain.
On 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 nineteen fifty seven. What are your earliest memories of home life growing up?
My early life was tin balls, you know, outside toilet. Right. There was all bombed houses. It was all there was from the war, it was twelve years after the war. And you played in those bomb sites. Yeah. That's that was the playground, you know. I remember one of our mates um had an accident on the bomb site, you know, and the police used to come home, the old Bobby, local Bobby, used to give you a clip round the hero and send you home, you know. It'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, we used all the kids used to stand outside waiting for him, and we'd watch his mum put in the glass eye.
It is it's kind that was that was the early days. But you kinda realise from That part of London 'cause it was a docks down the road, you know, Silvertown, Cannytown and all that. When you went on a Red Rover as a kid, you know, ten years away, eleven 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 the news reports, you weren't you weren't getting it on the news.
So a happy child.
Yeah, and it was a freedom. Right. It was a freedom about moving around. What did your parents do? My dad was uh like my uncles. A lot of my uncles were in the uh 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. Um uncles were in the fish market and the meat market. So, you know, there was always parcels. No, we were very, very lucky, you know. I th although people probably weren't earning a lot of money at the end, I think the average wage was about sixteen quid a week or something. But you always at well. Yeah. And you moved to Enfield in North London at the age I think ab at about eight. So did that feel eight and nineteen, something something around but that came about because without my dad knowing, see, I couldn't read till I was about eleven properly, you know.
Uh 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 my mum actually bought a house, she was very savvy, you know, in uh just on the borders of Winchemore Hill and e and Enfield. She bought this house, a George Reed house, for four and a half grand. And which was a lot of money in them days, you know. My dad didn't even know. She said, We're moving. Right. He went, All right. 'Cause it it'd been happy in rent accommodation, the old man.
But if you're moving from West Ham from Plasto from the East End to leafy Winchmore Hill, the suburbs, that must have
did it feel like a cultural change to the Yeah, absolutely. You know, but I just felt Like I was a bit different over there. It was like alien. Were you treated differently? Yeah, I think so. Because uh you know, I wasn't very uh intellectual at school. Did you speak differently to the other kids?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What early memories does Ray Winstone share about growing up in post‑war East London?
0:06–5:47
2
How did boxing and his family’s involvement in the sport shape Ray’s discipline and later acting career?
5:47–10:47
3
What was the story behind Ray’s first big break – being cast in the BBC drama *Scum*?
10:47–16:23
4
How did Ray approach the intense role of an abusive alcoholic in *Nil By Mouth* and what did he learn from working with Gary Oldman?
16:23–21:51
5
Why does Ray say violence should be shown honestly on screen, and how has type‑casting affected his choice of roles?
21:51–27:23
6
What insights does Ray give about collaborating with first‑time directors like Gary Oldman, Jonathan Glazer and Martin Scorsese?
27:23–32:20
7
How does Ray keep each criminal or “hard‑man” character distinct, especially when moving between film, TV and stage?
32:20–37:37
8
What does Ray say about his creative drive today and his thoughts on returning to the theatre?
37:37–43:12