"Ray Winstone"

Um, hey guys, it's really good to see you today. It's so great to see you, Sean. Good to see you too, Sean. Thank God you made it. Thank you. I slept really well and I feel really good today. Hopefully it looks like it. Do you remember your dreams? I do. I remember my dreams. I remember- What did you dream about last night? I remember Amanda driving on my front lawn and driving over all the flowers and the things. All the- Yeah. Wait, there was really impressive decor in front of your house currently that I saw a picture of. Right. And she drove through the entire thing and said she's having a really bad day. Can I come in and talk? And I'm like, sure. Swear to God, that was my dream last night. Really? What kind of car was she driving? Like a small Taurus. What is it? No, like a- Well, that's shitty. F you, bro. Well, anyway, welcome to Smart Less. Smart Less. Smart Less. Smart Less. Willie, where are you? I'm in Napa. You're in Napa? What are you doing in Napa? Are you drinking wine? No. I'm here for a wedding. Oh, really? Oh, wait. Do you have an announcement to make? Oh, my gosh. Congratulations. No, I don't. No, again, I don't. So, are you in the- Anybody we know? Are you in the wedding? Do you have to make a speech? No, I don't have to make a speech. No, no, no. I'm just here. I'm just a guest. I'm a plus one. All right. Are you a fan of weddings? Not really, for the most part. Are you? Yeah, I'm not. Because why? Because you have to dance? Well, here's the thing about weddings. They're fine, but especially if it's a weekend in the summer, if you invite me, it means that you don't like me. That's the way I look at it. Because you want me to take a weekend, and if it's a destination wedding, that's an insult. Well, did you have to go to this one? I did. Yeah. This isn't necessary. So, I'm happy to be here, and I'm happy for these people. I do like these people, so I'm happy for them. Yeah, but you are aware, though, that they don't like you. I can feel the vibe is not great towards me. Shawnee, when was the last wedding you went to? Do you remember when we were that age, when it was wedding age? It was a few a year. Yeah, yeah. I went this summer. I went to my niece's. Remember, it was really hot in Iowa. Was it Iowa? Yeah, it was Iowa. It was really, really hot. But, yeah, I can't do it. I can't do the heat anymore. It's just, I can't do anything. Oh, it's the heat. But if anybody asks you to a cold destination wedding, you're in. I'll do it. I'll go. Yeah, I'll go. And, Shawn, are you a dancer? Well, not anymore. But, I mean, look at this body. Yeah. Yeah. But you're a dancer. Yeah. You'll get on the dance floor at a party? He can dance. Not really anymore, but maybe. No, Shawn, he's being modest. If I put a gummy, if I eat a gummy, yeah. Really? Yeah. And what about you, Will? Will you get on a dance floor at a party? Yeah, sure, man. Really? Yeah, of course. It'll count as your cardio. Yeah. It's not just that. It's just like that's part of the thing. It's fun to dance and be, and enjoy yourself. I think that if you don't dance, and this is pointed directly at you, JB. Yeah. If you're too self-conscious, it's not about you, man. Yeah. And nobody's paying attention. It's fun. Let yourself go. I've got deep scars. It's one of the joys of life. Yeah, I've got deep scars. You're going to be on your deathbed, and you're going to have your list of regrets, by the way. Your list of regrets is long. But I'll tell you what won't be. I won't be regretful that I'm holding a lot of water weight, you know. I'll have wooden teeth and a nice bone structure. Every time I see it, JB and I were walking to John. It was Josh's 50th birthday the other day. We were walking through the parking lot. We see this old guy come out. He's hunched over and blah, blah, blah. And I go, and literally we're like within a foot of him. And I go, that's you. That's you now. You know, I said in the gym yesterday or the day before, do you guys— What is this place? No. No, I said, because I stopped working out. Like, I have a little trainer guy that helps me. And I stopped working out like after like 35 minutes or 40 minutes, right? Sure. You had enough. You had enough after a half hour? Yeah. And that's been my thing recently. Like, I don't need to do like a whole hour of working out. You know what I mean? Like, it's almost like, remember when people used to say, you got to finish your plate? Remember, we grew up like, you got to finish your plate. Yeah, of course. And now it's like, you feel like that. But it's like, no, that actually is the thing that makes you fat, right? Well, working out, I don't think you need to work out an hour anymore. You know, it's like, you work out until you're done working out. Like a half hour. Well, let's— 35 minutes. I mean, are you trying to get results? Or are you just trying to get out of there? Like, I mean— Yeah, I don't know. Is it because you're annoyed that you're starting to sweat? And you're afraid your clothes might get sweaty? It's like, ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm getting hot. Let's get out of here. That's a problem. That might be it. That might be it. I already got after it this morning. I already hit those kettlebells this morning, man. Oh, did you? What was it today? Was it you were just blasting quads and tries? Just everything. Just a full body. Engage the core, JB. You got to engage the core. You got a gym there at the hotel? Oh, do you follow my workout account on Instagram? You know, I got locked out. Imagine if I started a workout. Fuck me, man. I tell you. Uh-oh. Speaking of working out. Uh-oh. I wish I could have worked out to be as tough as this guy. Uh-oh. I really, really do. Because this guy—and I want to be careful because I think physically he could end me through a podcast microphone noise. John Cena. Pound, the most, I think, terrifying and terrifyingly talented man in all of cinema, British cinema, whatever. Benicio Del Toro. He plays a gangster so convincingly and layeredly that I legit think that he is one, and I've convinced myself, even though I know he's just an incredibly talented actor. He was. Can I just say this? He was British. Put it this way. When he was growing up, he was pound for pound. I don't know. He won like 80 out of 88 boxing matches when he was a kid. Oh, jeez. He was a London schoolboy champion, welterweight, on three occasions. He's been an actor for over 50 years in the most amazing films that we love. He's worked with Martin Scorsese multiple times. He's worked with the guy, JB, that we were just talking about and going over the other day we love so much, Jonathan Glazer, most notably in the most incredible performance for me in Sexy Beach. He's reprising his role in The Gentleman that's out now on Netflix. You guys, it's none other than Ray Winstone. Jesus. Ray Winstone. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Get out here. There's the reveal. There it is. Look at him. He's got the sunglasses on at the beach. Oh, my God. Look at. Hey. How you doing, guys? Good morning. How are you? Well, well. Mr. Winstone. Hello, sir. Yeah, I was telling you, I was telling your technicians, you know, flying, I've just flown back from London. I've flown back from London to Malta. I'm working in Malta. Really? And every time I seem to get on an airplane. I mean, I love driving, you know. Yeah. If I have to go somewhere, I usually drive. Yeah. If I can. Yes. Yeah. But, and you can take what you like. You can, you know, you can have your own bags. You can have this. You don't even have to zip them closed. When you go from an airport, yeah, you're told you can't take that. You know, you've got too many fluids. You've got this. You've got that. You know, it's like a fucking punishment. Yeah. Getting on an airplane. It's the worst. And then at the end of it, when you get off the other end, they give you the flu. I always get the fucking flu. You know. Do you have the flu right now or no? Yeah. I mean, I got it. Last night we got in and I was feeling a little bit rough after they opened the door, you know. Yeah. And all the smell goes out of the plane and everyone's firing for position and I just come over, you know. I just come over. And it just makes you never want to do it again. I totally hear you. I totally agree. I love driving. Yeah. Oh, driving is the best. Yeah, I do too. Can I just say, JB, what a coincidence, Ray, that you're in Malta because JB has some roots in adjacent. My grandmother's from Malta. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't even know that. Yeah. I went there when I was a little kid. It's really, it's a really cool place and it's got major World War II significance. Yeah, Willie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the Victoria Cross, wasn't it, for bravery, the island? Oh, yeah. Because where it's placed in the Med, it's a very important part of the Second World War, not only the Second World War, but the Crusades and it goes back to history. Yeah, yeah. It goes back a hell of a long time. My grandfather was in the British Air Force and he met my grandmother there. She was a local there and then they got married and then she got on a plane. She got on a boat with, she was pregnant on a boat back to England with my mother. And then she got the flu. Wow. And then got the flu. Got the flu. Jason always says, look at his fingers. They're great for pulling up nets. Multi-fisherman hands. You got to have a little bit of fat on the fingers so they don't get cut in the nets, you know? Ray, have you ever, speaking of the air, I know what you mean about air flying, flying in a plane. Have you ever witnessed, like, it does seem like it's getting worse and worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been on a flight where it's just like chaos and people fight? I see those videos all the time, and that's my biggest fear. No, but it's on that Instagram. Yeah, you get them on there. You know, I was involved on one. Oh, but come on. No, no, gospel truth. This is gospel truth. And I was coming out to see a film called Nail by Mouth that we made back in the day. Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman directed it, you know. Sure, I love him. And we was on an Air India flight, okay, because it was the last flight you could get and you couldn't actually have a cigarette on, you know. Yeah. And we were sitting there, and an Irish kid joined us. He said, could I come and sit down with you there and have a drink? I said, yeah, okay, we had a spare seat. He said, come and sit down. And there was a couple of kids opposite him sitting there. And during the flight, the Irishman got very, very drunk, bless him. Yeah, shocker. And I went to the toilet, and when I was on my way back, he was fighting the other two kids across from us. No way. He lost the plot. Yeah, he completely lost the plot. And so I've got older than him, and my other mates grabbed older than the other two, and we partied them, and we got him down and said, now behave yourself, calm down. Anyway, they took him away on the plane and put him in a jacket up the front. No way. That's crazy. And we were treated like heroes, because we saved the flight, and they gave us free drinks. And they didn't do an emergency landing or anything? No, no, no, we landed in New York. And when we got off in New York, I got arrested. Did you? What? No. I got taken to New York. To the naughty boys' room, yeah. And I was actually put on the flight back to London. No way. Yeah, yeah. No way. It's crazy. When's the last time you got in a fist fight, Ray? It's quite a few years ago now. Yeah. Yeah, I did say to a kid on a train once who was misbehaving, he was on one of our train systems out from Hertfordshire, and I said, listen, kid, I haven't had a fight for 10 years. I said, but for you, I will make a comeback. that would scare the shit out of me jeez man as you're taking your jacket off you don't get in trouble to take your jacket off you just go I'm too old, I mean I don't want to be rolling about in the mud, the blood and the beer anymore no no no, you know Ray, I was going to say that we have a friend of ours who's been on the podcast he's an old friend of mine, he's a retired professional ice hockey player, great guy Brendan Shanahan, tough guy he holds the record for what they a stat they call the Gordie Howe hat trick, Gordie Howe is a legendary hockey player and the Gordie Howe hat trick means in a game you get an assist a goal and a fight right, and so he holds the record for the most Gordie Howe hat tricks Brendan Shanahan my god, they're tough guys tough guys, so he retired he retired years ago, he's our age he retired years ago, we're good friends about a few months after he retired he called me one day you know, it's kind of a Wednesday afternoon he seemed kind of down and out and I said, what's going on Shani, you okay? and he goes, nah, I don't know he said, I just, it just occurred to me that I'm probably never going to fight again and I said, listen, you're 42, you shouldn't be fighting anybody that's crazy it's probably true, you know I've always wished to be in a fight, like I've never been in a fight but like in my brain, I'd be really good but then I don't know, like if it would actually happen, I don't know what I would do but you know how you, like you're like I got robbed or something, I know exactly what to do because I've seen so many movies but I don't know yeah, it ends up on the ground pretty quick, doesn't it Ray? yeah, it's first one in right you know, and if you are the first one in and you get it wrong you are in trouble yeah and Sean, let me tell you you know, it may be in your head but you really don't want to do it just leave it alone, it's not nice I did hear that the key yeah, the key is to hit first and just don't stop right? yeah, they run most guys I know who are good fighters or tough guys don't want to get into a fight they do everything they can to avoid it they sort of that's the guy you're worried the guy who's kind of like, yeah, let's go, let's go no, it's the guy who says, nah, let's not nah, let's not, that's the guy I'm worried about very true, Will yeah I wouldn't be good no, no, no alright, so you're in Malta, you're about to start work yeah how do you like working away from home? do you like this travel? my wife loves it, you know because she gets rid of me for a couple of months she doesn't come with you? like Malta seems like a good spot yeah, she's here now, to be fair the first four weeks I was here on my own, you know and, you know, we've got a 94-year-old mum you know, at home so she needs looking after and she can't travel so there's all that kind of stuff but thank God we've got a big enough family we can go out there and talk to her kind of get on with that, you know but I've always travelled with a family you know, when the kids were younger if I was working in the States or I was working in Europe you'd take the kids with you and it's the greatest education in the world with them you know, they meet people from all over the world yeah yeah, of course yeah, it's really cool, yeah do you, do you, you've got how many kids have you got? you've got a few daughters, is that right, Ray? I've got three daughters, yeah I've got grandsons as well so, you know, it's kind of balanced itself out I mean, I don't know about you guys if you've got kids, he's got yeah I've got three boys Jason's got two girls yeah I can't, I'm looking forward to being a grandfather because I was sort of I'm looking forward to that infant stage again yeah because the first time around I was just like yeah, well, it's great you're just trying to get through it yeah now in retrospect I know how great it was once they started walking and talking was really kind of cool like after like 12 months but now I'm like now I bet you there's something more in those 12 months that I need another crack at so I can't wait you know what, Jason you know, the thing is when we were when we had our kids yeah we were working yeah and so it's true you know, we missed a lot of that yeah, yeah missed a lot of them kids you're right them times, you know and the thing about having a grandson we can kind of sit back a little bit now you know, we've done yeah, yeah, yeah we've done what we've had to do yeah, yeah, yeah and you've got time now with him yeah, yeah, yeah and you've got time now so it's kind of saying sorry you know, in a way but now I've got him and when he gets on your nerves or she gets on your nerves you can give her back yeah, that's so nice lovely yeah, my dad go ahead Shawnee, what? I'm just saying my dad had that philosophy when I was five just give him back yeah yeah, yeah or your dad what are you doing there in Malta? you said you spent you've already done four weeks on it it's a yeah, we're doing a show called Danger Money for Amazon yeah oh, great yeah, it's about an old SAS guy you know, in all these films where you've got men my age jumping out of bushes karate chucking people and you know, shooting everyone and I mean, they're fabulous to watch I love them but we've kind of taken it the other way a bit I mean, he's an old boy who thinks like Sean was saying in his head he can still do it you know right, right and he can to a certain degree but it hurts you know, we suffer with rheumatism you know, and we you know, and that's we get shingles and things like that shit like that I've just got over shingles you know oh my god you really? you didn't get the vaccine? no, no I was due to have it but what happened with me was I stopped drinking about two and a half years ago yeah and one day I just went do you know what? I'm really fed up with this I'm not enjoying it anymore I'm telling the same stories I'm talking about absolute bollocks I need just to have a little break from this so I stopped drinking and I started training good for you doing a bit of your stuff, Will getting myself fit not running but on the walking machine you know yeah, yeah and I got myself I lost two and a half stone I felt fighting fit again for a couple of right-handers and then I got fucking shingles oh god yeah the worst by stopping drinking looking after myself stopped smoking all the shit got rid of out of my life yeah and then I fell ill with shingles well if you've ever had a shingle if you've ever had it I hear it's the worst I hear it's the worst now why? what is it? what's the symptoms painful, right? of shingles it's a rash well you feel like you've got a red-hot poker being stuck through your back oh right yeah you get lesions come up uh-huh and my mother-in-law mum 94 said to me Raymond I had it once around the midriff she said is it going all the way around your body? and I said no mum it's not it's only halfway you know across the back she said it's good I said why? what happens when it goes around all the way around she said you die oh jeez thank you jeez oh my god what's the treatment yeah absolutely brutal what's the treatment for it? do they have you get some cream you get cream for the lesions and all that sort of stuff but it don't go away and how long did you have it? it still creeps back on you well since I was a kid since November it kind of settled down in February when I started working because you had other things to think about yeah and when I finished work it came on again started to know a job it went away oh jeez and now I'm I was just fed a bit in me back yeah so it's been quite a while yeah maybe start drinking a little bit more maybe you need to pick up how to change things I'm going out tonight I'm going out tonight for a meal and I'm going to do a bottle of red wine there you go there you go let's just shoot yeah fuck it why not you know I mean the cigs are tough to give up aren't they man And I've just, that's been. Yeah, do you know what I've done, though? I got rid of the cigarettes. That was all right. Because all I do with that is I've got something to do with me hands, you know? I'm not stealing anything when I've got a cigarette in me hands. So that's fine. But then I started smoking little cigars. Yeah. And the trouble with little cigars is you forget you're smoking a cigar and not a cigarette, and you take it down like a fucking cigarette. And you're, ugh! Right. Cigars, man. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show. Ray, I wanted to get back into, we talked about it in all this sort of fighting and boxing and stuff, but you did legit, you started, you were boxing before you were acting. Yeah. And I'm interested how you made that, well, first of all, how the, I think your dad boxed a little bit, too. Is that right? Yeah. Listen, where we came from, I'm sure it's the same in New York, you know, around the Bronx and all. And as it is in Liverpool and Manchester and Coventry, you know, in England. And kids from a certain manner, you know, I lived near the docks. So you kind of, your sport was boxing, you know. Yeah. Where if you went to North London, it was probably more football, you know. And that was sports. But, so we boxed. And I guess it was a way it goes back generational because you've got to learn to survive. And you learn how to fight. What boxing actually teaches you is how to avoid it, actually. Uh-huh. Because you get an instinct for it. You get an instinct for where trouble's going to be. And you know how to conduct yourself. You know how to manoeuvre yourself away from those situations, you know. So, really, it was a great education in that way. Not only that, a boxing club, the great thing about boxing clubs is you get kids from all walks of life. You know, different religions, different colour, you know, different beliefs. But at a boxing club. It's all forgotten about. It's just pushed away. And you kind of get the feeling if the world was run like that, we wouldn't have any problems, you know. Because we never had any problems at boxing clubs, you know. So, you're doing that. And then what's the thing that you go, what was the first, what gave you that first sort of inclination to start performing, acting? Like, was there one particular thing? Well, I kind of done a school, I went into a school play when I was about, I guess I was about, 14 years of age. There was a, there was a girl in the play that I kind of fancied, you know. It's quite lovely. Yeah. And, you know, it's always the way, isn't it, boys? It's basically, you go into a certain thing because you see someone and you think, oh, you know. I never thought about it before. I loved going to the cinema. Loved watching films, you know. I used to go with my dad every Wednesday. He'd come home from the market and he'd pick me up and, you know, in the afternoon we'd go and watch a film. And we always, you know. So, and I'd done this play called Emmy on the Detectives and I played the paper boy, you know. Read all about it. And I got a few laughs, you know what I'm saying, you know. And I think my mum and dad saw that because I was a bit of a kid on the streets, you know. And they thought, you know, it's got something here, this kid, you know. And they put me and paid for it when, you know, money was, it was 900 quid a term. And in those days, it was back in the 70s. It was a lot of money, free terms a year. And my mum and dad were only working people, you know. And I think it was a way of keeping me off the streets. Although I had the boxing club, which kind of done that. But to give me some, another outlook on life in a way. Because again, it was a place you met kids from all over the world. And, you know, it was a great education in that way, you know. Did you have brothers or sisters that were running around doing something similar? My sister, Laura, she's my youngest sister. She's probably more talented than I am. I would say so. But she never went into that. She's a mum, you know. She's got the free boys. And we're still very close. She lives down the road from me in London, you know, in Essex. And so, yeah. And when you would go with your dad to the cinema as a kid, do you remember, like, was there a film that you're like, oh, my God, this changed my life? Yeah, what were some of the early things? Listen, we used to go and watch 633 Squadron. You know, it was Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton. That was the films at the time. And you had the kitchen sink dramas coming through in the 60s, you know. I look back in anger and Saturday night, Sunday morning. They were really stories about people from where we came from. All of a sudden, we weren't just watching American movies or movies about the aristocracy. We were actually watching films about where we came from, you know. Great films. Saturday night, Sunday morning, black and white movie, Albert Finney and Rachel Roberts. Love Albert Finney. And, you know, it's about a working man in a northern town. But even as a Londoner, you can relate to it. Yeah. And it kind of opened the doors to say, you know, maybe I could be in something like that. Maybe I've got a voice about the social things that go on in my country, you know. And that's, I think, what interested me in films in the first place. Films like Nail By Mouth. Films like Scum. They're all about how we live socially. And I think that's what kind of gave me the bug for it. Yeah. When you see these stories that aren't, like you said, they're not about the aristocracy or all these or American. They feel much more relatable in a way. And you think like, yeah, I could do. Yeah. I could get into that. Do you know, I remember watching The Raging Bull with my mate, me and my mate Tony Yates. We used to box together at the Reptum. And any boxing film that was out, we'd have it, you know. And although The Raging Bull is a boxing film, and it's probably one of the greatest films you could ever go and watch, you know, cinematically or in any other way, the way it's shot, the way it's acted, it's brilliant, you know. Yeah. But you kind of realise, I mean, after, I know I've been in films in London where they say we've got to subtitle it, you know, for the American audience. And I went, why? You know, the thing about film is if you watch it, the first five minutes are a foreign film. If it's a good film, you'll start to understand it. Right. And you'll hear it. You'll hear it in your ear, you know. The Raging Bull, when they start talking in there, within five minutes, you're tuned into it. Yeah. And you realise it's not just a film. It's not a film about boxing, actually. It's about a film, it's a film about the way people live, you know. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's what makes a great film. Yeah. You know, you can put a subject matter around it. You can put that in there. Yeah. Sexy Beast is a love story. It's not a gangster movie. Yeah. It's a love story, you know. And that's kind of what you've got to get the vibe of great films, you know. That's what it should be. I was going to say that, Ray. I was going to, we were sort of jumping ahead to Sexy Beast, but I was going to say, you're a performer to Sexy Beast. It's not a gangster film. It's not a mobster film. It is a, I mean, it's everything. It's a love story and it's also this guy, Gal, he's studying with, not struggling with, but he's kind of. he's lived two lives and now he's in this other part of his life and he's sort of got to reconcile with his past and if he can't put it to bed, then he can't continue in this piece that he's finally achieved and all of this stuff. And it's a, I find it, I've long maintained that that film should be shown at film school. You could just show that one semester and say, that's it. Just look at this film once every day. He's a clever boy, John Lee. I mean, his first film was World of Mate. He's a very clever man. But that film, for me, is, you know, I mean, Don Loga's The Nightmare comes into town. But we know he's coming. But for me, it also, because we never made up our mind who was doing what and what was anyone thinking about it. We just let the audience do that, you know. But for me, it was always, I think, deep down inside, Gary really wanted to do the robbery. He wanted to do the blank. Because that's in his blood, you know. It's in his blood. And I think that the thing that kind of got in the way a bit was the love for Dee. Because he has to protect her. So his excuse is, I'll do the robbery because I know I'm actually protecting Dee by doing the robbery. Bullshit. I think, you know, when you're a good thief, when you're a good robber. I grew up with a really good mate of mine, Danny Jones. He won't mind me calling him by his name. We sat together at school. We grew up together. And he was one of the Hatton Garden old men who'd done the robbery. Wow. He's actually just come out of prison again, you know. Oh, wow. And I know Danny's story from being a kid, you know. His family were hungry, you know. And the only way out was to go and do it. I'm not making excuses for him. He's a thief. You know, you get caught, you go to prison. That's it. But, you know, there's a mentality behind him. You know, you do something for a person. You do something for a purpose to feed someone, to feed your family. And then you kind of fall in love with doing it. And the challenge is finding a way into that building without getting caught and getting out with the price. Yeah. You know? Bruce Reynolds, who was a great train robber, you'd sit there and have a glass of red wine with Bruce. And Bruce would talk to you like that. He was talking like that. Lovely glasses he used to wear. But what he was talking to you about. You're a big. looking at the room. What we call casing the joint. You probably still do it. You probably call it that in America, you know. Casing the joint is he has to work out a way. It doesn't matter if he's sitting in your front room. He has to work out a way how you get in that room and out of that room without getting caught. And it's quite fascinating, you know. And that's what Gary is. That's what Gal is in Sexy Beast, you know. I was in college. I got arrested for stealing a turkey sandwich. No. Oh man, you bastard. What kind of time did you do for that? A turkey sandwich? I had a turkey sandwich. I was hungry. Like you said, I was starving. And I got arrested and I went to the jail and I had to get a friend to give me a hundred bucks to get out. I was 18. 17. Now you know who your friends are. You see that? Sounds like you didn't case the joint, man. Yeah, I didn't case it. How was the turkey, by the way? Was it fresh? They took it out of my hands. They actually took it out of my hands. I was throwing the tomatoes out of a. And the cops drove by and saw me throwing tomatoes. Because I don't like tomatoes on a sandwich, yeah. And if you had eaten the tomatoes, you would have got away with it. Probably. Look at this. There you go. The cops stood right in front of me. I told this story already. But the cops stood right in front of me and I was so drunk and I looked up and I was like, you know, what's up? And he's like, well, we saw you steal that turkey sandwich because they had surveillance in the back, right? And I was like, okay. So they put me in the car and then I do the drunk guy thing. I'm like, there's not enough other bad stuff going on campus. You got to arrest the guy stealing the turkey sandwich. Like I was giving him lip. But like, you know, anyway, it's a non-story. Sean, if you do that three times, you steal three turkey sandwiches, you know, in different days. Is that three strikes and out? You can go away for 30 years or something? Good question. Good question. Hey, Ray, when you started to. get some, you know, when you kind of made a commitment to really pursue the acting stuff, you know, I would imagine there in England, there's a big culture for classically trained acting and theater and Shakespeare, et cetera, et cetera. Did you subscribe to that? Were you excited to explore that? Have you ever gone into that? Because it seems very much at odds with your working class. Roots, maybe. Yeah, do you know, the biggest problem when I started was me, really. Yeah? To be perfectly honest with you. I never felt like I should, me personally, that I should be in the arts. Me? In the arts. What have I got to do with the arts, you know? And so I kind of put that on myself without anyone doing it to me, you know? So I was. I wouldn't call myself an angry young man, because that makes you sound like you're a rebel without a cause with all that cobblers, you know? Right. It wasn't that so much. It was that people had different conversations than I would have. You know, I'd be talking about something completely different to what they were on. You know, they'd be talking about the theater and how lovely, what a performance, and I'd be talking about a football match, or, you know. Exactly. Yeah, that's what I mean. That was me, you know. And so I kind of didn't really fit in. And I didn't really try to fit in, you know. It was okay. It was. And I was quite happy with myself with that, you know? Sure. And your talent, your quality, your technique, or what I so love about you is that authenticity, and I never catch you acting. It just seems like you're just so natural and comfortable with it. Where did that come from? It sounds like it did not come from a classical training that you kind of deconstructed and kind of made your own. You're just natural with it, yeah. Well, I just had my own ideas, you know. And I remember doing a. You might have heard this story, I don't know, but I don't mean to bore you, right? No, never. I don't know. They used to do a Lambda exam at college, you know, Lambda exam. I mean, I thought to myself, what does that mean? If you get 10 out of 10 for the Lambda exam, does that get you a job? Right. I don't know, you know. Why would you take a fucking exam to be an actor? Right, right. I've said that my whole life. Surely, you put a camera there and go and act, son. Are you any good or what? You know. Yeah, right. But we had to do this speech, it was Julius Caesar, you know, wherefore rejoice what conquest brings ye home. What tributaries follow him to Rome and all that. And I see all these people doing the same thing, you know. Doing it very well, you know. It was good, you know. And I just I got this knack with Shakespeare, you know. Everyone writes books about what it means, but, you know. And I did a play for TV set in Birmingham on an estate about Macbeth. And I, you know, I played the king. And I just had my own ideas about what to be or not to be means. You know, to be or not to be. To be something or to be nothing. I don't know. Fuck. You know, and so I always set this in the pub, you see. And it's about Giza, who actually is, you know, praying all the people around the man who have all gone, you know, we love this guy. And all of a sudden he gets done him. And the new guy comes in and they all cheer him. And that's what the scene's about. And I'd done it. And I got zero. Right? I got zero. I'm not saying I'd done it well, but I didn't even get one for imagination. You know, just kind of change it. And, you know, and I thought, there's two ways you can go there. There's two ways. You can either say, well, you know, maybe I'm not supposed to be in this business, you know. Or you can go, fuck off. Right. I ain't having it. And I think where the boxing and all that comes in, when, you know, best form of defence is attack. Yeah. You know, when it's on you, you've got to step forward. So that was kind of my mentality. And it was probably a lucky day when that happened, you know. Just that thing of thinking, I'm a great believer. If you don't know the rules, then you break them. And that's when you invent something. That's when you start doing something that's hopefully original. It's not always good. And it doesn't always work. But when it does work, it's fucking good. You know? Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of my mentality about it, you know. I mean, I've watched stuff I've done and thought I was, when I was doing it, I thought I was really good. I was really good today. And I've seen it back. And it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you get away with it? Who was the first person that you worked with, actor, director, whoever it was, that you were like, holy shit. I think I'm in there now. I think I've, quote unquote, made it. Well, it's two I can go to, really. Alan Clark was the first one. I've done a film called Scum. And I wasn't an actor at the time. He kind of found me. And he taught me on set, you know, by manipulation, by finding senses in me. And he knew how to upset me. He knew how to calm me down. He knew how to give me a cuddle and all that sort of stuff. So, and the lucky thing for me was when I've worked with a director that's not so good, I can kind of call on that myself. I kind of understand where that is. But it can also get in the way sometimes because you feel every part and every film you do, you have to play it real. It has to be spot on, you know. And it really fucks you about sometimes because the genre might be slightly different. You know, and you get that wrong. Right. The other one, I think the best director for an actor I've ever worked with is Gary Oldman, really. Oh, yeah. Really? I bet. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's always, that's from an actor's point of view, you know. So, yeah. We'll be right back. And back to the show. What was it like standing across from Ben Kingsley watching him do that performance? Did you have any warning about the way he was going to be playing that character? Or did you, like, was there rehearsals? Was there a table read? Or was it just right there on the first day, you're standing there in front of that just machine gun of talent? Yeah, because that dynamic between you two was just electric. Yeah. I'll tell you a little thing, right? When Sexy Beasts come about, there was three films. There was Gangster No. 1, Sexy Beasts, and 44 Inch Chests. I was supposed to do the three of them. Gangster No. 1 had a falling out with the producers and all that, so we couldn't do that. I had a choice of doing that or doing Sexy Beasts, so I done Sexy Beasts. But I was gonna play Don. Oh, wow. I had the part of Don, and I said, do you know what? I want to play Gary. I said, I've done Don. Can't fucking help swearing. He's fucking, you know, he's a fucking nut, and he just swaps. And that's fine. I can do that standing on my head, but Gary's the lover. He's the man. And the words are so beautiful in Sexy Beasts. They're words you want to say. You don't have to change a word. If you change a word, it doesn't work. You have to say the words that are on the page. That's very unusual, you know? So when Don was, I heard that Don was gonna get played by Ben, who who I absolutely love to death, I've got to tell you. But I thought, fucking hell, I've got Gandhi coming in, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, better tighten up. I've got to stand there and Gandhi's got to bully me. Oh, well, darn, that's going to happen, you know. Fucking hell. All right, okay. But then he doesn't turn up because he's locked in on this other film. So we're in Spain shooting around him, you know, all the scenes about him coming. It's a bit like Jaws, you're waiting to see the shark, you know. And then he turns up and you know the rest. Yeah. Phenomenal. Absolutely. What he'd done with that character. There's people that you meet in your life that become very hard work to talk to. In fact, you're frightened to ask them a question. You know, how you been today? All right, why? What do you want to know? It's that kind of, you know. And we've all met people like that, you know. And you think they're fucking hard work. That's Don. But a million times more, you know. And I thought he was stunning in it, you know. Yeah, oh, incredible. Did you have a sense of the kind of director that Jonathan Glazer was about to become? Yeah, I think as an artist, yeah. Because we'd seen his commercials. He told you a story in 30 seconds. The thing was, can he tell you a story in an hour and a half, two hours? That's the big thing, stretch it out. We know. The way he films and shoots something, we know it's going to be beautiful. You know, he's going to get it right. He's a genius. But how's he going to be with actors? How's he going to be able to talk to us, you know, and sit us down and suss us out? And how was that? Within a week, yeah, within a week, he got that. Yeah? Wow. He got it. His very first movie. Yeah, and that was his first film, you know, feature film. Yeah. I think we had a lot of respect for him anyway, you know. Yeah, sure. So it was quite easy for him, you know. Yeah. The casting was great. Yeah. The casting was amazing. But as you know, like with film, you know, the tone is so important, right? And maintaining that tone consistently. Yeah. And especially in that film when you've got you and Ben and this incredible cast and keeping it in such a specific tone. And it either floats or it doesn't, you know? Yeah, do you know, it's a really good point. It's a good point, Will, because I kind of, it takes me back now. I kind of remember, because Don's was do it, do it, do it. He had a pace about him and he had a turn on him, you know. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm not going to get into that rhythm. I think I'm talking on the half beat. So if you both start talking at the same beat, if you like, like Shakespeare. Yeah. You know, if they do Shakespeare and it's now is the winter. Everyone starts talking the same. It's like a poem. Yeah. You know? It's not like people talking. So I felt to make it kind of work, I've got to make mine the reality. And he's surreal. Sure. You know? And I think that everything that's going on is in my head, you know? With the rabbit and all that. It's the nightmare. Don turning up. It's like you're having a nightmare. And then you're waking up to this fucking hell, you know? Yeah. And so the way. The way you talk, you can't put it on the same rhythm as him. You've got to have your own rhythm. Yeah. You know? And it disjoints it a bit. Yeah, of course. Do it, do it, do it. I can't, Dom. But it became, yeah, like, it became its own rhythm. The off rhythm became its own rhythm. And you guys, and do you, it occurs to me that, you know, you worked for a long time. You made a lot of films and a lot of TV shows, et cetera, before Sexy Beast, which was, I think, in 2000. And then I think it was almost one of those things. When that film comes out, everybody goes, hey, we've been sleeping on Ray Winstone. This guy is a heavyweight. And all of a sudden, you go on a run and you make a lot of films. And, you know, within a couple of years, you're working with Martin Scorsese, which you did a few times. Yeah. Was that a, you know, when you made that film and you come out of that and the reception that Sexy Beast gets, is it one of those things like, and everybody goes, hey, all of a sudden, in a way, it's a rediscovery of you. And you're like, yeah, I've been here all along. I know what I'm doing, you know? Yeah, there is. But, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I kind of went through a few years where I just kind of fell out of love with it all. And maybe that was to do with, because I was enjoying myself too much, you know. I was having a party. Right. You know, and I loved life and I loved being there. The kind of the work always has come second, to be honest with you. You know? That's the work. That's what you do with a living, you know? Right, right. But what comes with that, you know? Oh, you jet off to New Zealand, you do this, and you go to a nice restaurant, you have a bit of manjali, it's lovely, you know? So the work, even to this day, is still secondary. It's there for a purpose. You get to 70 years away, as you look back, you go, yeah, I ain't doing it now because I fucking love it, you know? I'm doing it now because I've got to. I've got to go to work, you know? This is what we do. And if I don't go to work, I'll probably die. Right. But there was a time where I kind of, you know, I let it go. And the actual work suffered, you know? The quality of what I was doing, I felt, suffered. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't really want to do this anymore. You know, because I'm not enjoying it, and I'm not enjoying being here. I'm not enjoying, you know, drinking all the time. I'm not enjoying being down the pub and caning it with everyone else. I don't want to do that no more. So, and then, you know what, and then you go, I'll make a little British film, you know, which I've just done, you know, going under. Four and a half weeks, I took the film, made a major motion picture, and loved every minute of it. And then all of a sudden you go, oh, well, that's what it's really all about. Yeah, right, right, right. It's kind of work. Everyone, you love everyone at work, and it's quality. Speaking about work, though, I mean, sorry to ask such a pedestrian question, but, like, you know, what did you. Did you do before, like, was there any really weird job growing up that you were, like, doing it to make ends meet before you made some money acting? Yeah, I mean, when you was a kid, my dad worked in, you know, all my uncles were, either worked in the meat market, fruit market, or the fish market, you know? Most of them, anyway. Dads and uncles and that. So we never went hungry, you know. There was plenty of spillage going on, you know. Right, right, right. And so there would always be cartons of booze, turning up, and everyone was at it. It was 12 years after the Second World War, you know. Yeah. So everyone was on it, you know. So, and that's, you kind of learned to survive. And the only way you learn to survive is, it's not sitting in your arse indoors. You go out and get something, whatever that is, you know. And so I've always been a good grafter, you know. I've always been up there. When I worked in, you know, Spitfield's Market when I was 14, you know, pulling barrels, that's what we'd done, you know. Got it, got it. And then we'd be out and about, ducking and diving. Fine, that's blinding. Ducking and diving. But I've seen that world, and I've seen, I've been lucky enough to go to places in the world where you wouldn't go on holiday. You go there because you're working or you're filming there, you know, and you meet people in these countries that are from these countries. You fall in love with them, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's such an education. You know, I couldn't read when I was 11, you know. Wow. But through reading scripts, I can read now just about, you know. I can read now, you know. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, what the business has done for me, if anything, it's educated me, you know. Right. Has all your success and all this luxury, has it made you soft at all? Yeah, I hope so. I really hope so. No, I mean, like, do you think you could manage in the rough and scrabble sort of world that you started in? Do you go back there a lot, or are you still there? Yeah. I mean, as I said earlier, most of my friends come from where I was growing up, you know, and they still are. You know, and some of them, I don't know what some of them were. Some are cab drivers, you know. Some work as porters, or we're in the fish market. You know, I go, that's what my mates do. And the beauty of that is, when I finish work and I'm eating for a drink, no one fucking talks about this business. They might say, I've seen a really good film. You see that film the other night on the telly? Bosh, bosh, bosh. You have a little rabbit about that, you know. But we talk about other things, you know. Right, right. And it's great. You know, when you sit down having a cigar and say, did you see that wonderful play last week? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know nothing wrong with that, but, you know, at the same time, fuck me, that's not for me, you know. Yeah. You're a big West Ham fan, a supporter, is that right? Yeah. The Hammers. The Hammers. So you're going on a bit of a tough run. They got relegated to the championship for, Tracy, we always say Sean's sister is Tracy, and we always let her know in case she doesn't know the reference, West Ham were a Premier League team. They got relegated this year to the second division, which is, oddly enough, called the championship. It's misnamed, but I'm a big Liverpool supporter, you should know. But I feel your pain. I feel your pain. Do you know, Will, there's a lot in common with West Ham and Liverpool because they're both dock teams, you know. Come out from around the docks and, you know, working class people, And there's always been that kind of respect between West Ham and Liverpool that way funny enough yeah so wait so west ham's in the same division with uh with rob's team right with rex with rexum yeah yeah yeah what do you think about that what do you think about rex somehow they've made this this jump what once a year they're they're they're moving up a division right it's fantastic isn't it and you know what it's livened it up a little bit and all they've done a good job there the boys yeah they have right you know and what they've done they've brought the whole town together as well yeah yeah you know it's not just about the football it's about the community in that area what they've done it's quite a fantastic job all parts right yeah it's good it's good they're good guys rob rob is a good friend see that's what football was originally that you know and you supported the team where you lived where you were bred and born where you came from it's your manner right and that's west ham i come out west ham right so that's why i support west ham for me you know you come out liverpool you support liverpool now it's such a modern game you know it's about the players that play there for a short while that someone will support manchester city someone will put support liverpool or manchester united and they don't come from them you know it's kind of strange that kind of that kind of vibe you know i can understand it if you're watching it in america and you come from america yeah and then you like soccer and then i can understand why you'd pick a team like liverpool you know and that's me being nice will yeah yeah i can i well i i come by it naturally because my my good friend uh chappy he's uh he's been a liverpool supporter forever so i just kind of went with him because i didn't know much about it but uh i just watch his back yeah before before we let you go uh ray because you've been so generous with your time i wanted to ask you about it now occurs to me you mentioned watching raging bull and and really and really appreciating it as a film at the time and understanding it's not just a boxing film it's so much and then you come back and you're like oh my god i'm not gonna watch that movie again and then you find yourself years later working with martin scorsese was that a yeah was that surreal experience for you the first time you were that's like playing in the cup final well yeah yeah you know if for me anyway for the films that i grew up watching and and watching these films from mean street and all that johnny fingers all them early ones that were kind of he was kind of connected to with with uh with the guys and all the way through to make an actual gangster film by scorsese yeah you know was a bit of a blast for me yeah blast you know and you kind of feel like you've reached the pinnacle there you know a little bit you know i mean my i was up to play one of the policemen you know in it and uh i went to see him at the dorchester and i just said i can't play a cop but i can't play a policeman you know i've got to be in a martin scorsese film i've got to be a gangster i'm sorry yeah yeah right and we had a we had a good chat man he's very funny guy very nice man and um i said can't i play mr french and he said but mr french don't say anything i said well that's how you find out about the guy the gangster because he's got to have a mate you know i said i'll just rabbit on the rounds you know i'll just talk while they're doing their bits and all that and he said okay yeah we'll do that and that's kind of how it came about and i you know i absolutely love it him and uh we didn't fall out we kind of had a i said my british humor probably went down the wrong way you know when he uh he said to me kids you're going home he said just when i'm beginning to understand what you're talking about and i said i said that's all right marty i'll see you at the reshoots right and then kind of because marty's no going on filming it went down like a bag of shit you know so you think there's millions of people in the fucking world so i shouldn't worry about one so he so he wasn't kind of he wasn't kind of getting your humor or your style or whatever british humor is kind of very different from american humor oh yeah yeah you know it's a little it's a little wittier that's a that's a common phrase though i i've said that a thousand times leaving a project you know exactly yeah that's true yeah often not the case the director of the film yeah no yeah yeah yeah probably not ray i'd be i'd be uh i'd be be remiss if i didn't mention i did mention at the top uh uh the gentleman season two this series yeah yeah just talk a little bit if you will it's all it's out now on netflix uh well i've seen one episode from season two the first season i thought was great i loved it you know the chicken scene is my favorite scene i've ever seen on tv you know when he's in the chicken suit with a shooter and all that it's very good and um i've spoke to all the journalists here about what they've seen because i've just come off a junkie you know oh yeah and um all the journalists say it's better if you believe journalists i believe do we believe a journalist oh they're the best yeah yeah well they say it's the yeah season two's better so that's the vibe you know so good it starts today anyway so i should probably watch it a bit of it later on well we will see how it's going yeah yeah but it's it's it's a great it's great working with with this little mob they were they're a good little family and um and work with guy you know it changes every day the scripts change so you'll get a four four page dialogue scene you know but messes the dialogue quite tricky and you learn it and then you go the next day and he thought about it and he said here's the new one right you go fuck this you're lovely but it's better when you read it it's better yeah and it's as long as it's better it's all right because once you've learned the first one you can learn the second one and away you go well and it's even with the actual film the story you've read on the page ain't the story you're going to watch when you see the final episode it's it changes it it's it's the film's made in the editing room really and it but it's for the better yeah you can't move with that you know yeah well it's a it's a it's a it comes with a lot of uh the the auspices of it are pretty great it's created by guy richie uh it's you and and theo james and uh gencarlo esposito some of the people in joely richardson hugh bonneville i mean it's uh it's it's it's packed with a lot of talent from uh in every department on that on that show so yeah lovely wish you wish a lot of luck with it man and uh it's just been such a joy to have you ray i've been just such a massive fan for a long long time and uh really just uh just you know couldn't uh just love everything you do it's terrific you know what guys that's really kind of you thank you very much and uh you know i'm i'm honored to be on your show i've seen some of the people you've had on there before so it's it's a real privilege for me and it's nice to be to see faces that i see on the telly that i don't know back at you yeah maybe one day we sit down and we'll have a glass of something we'd love that let's do it yeah when you're done with malta go out there reapply your sunblock yes all right i will do yes all right sir all right pleasure talking to you thank you so much what an honor thank you very much you're right cheers cheers oh patty boys bye-bye oh man what an absolute treat yeah yeah guys the windstone guys yeah what a treat he's like a guy you could just hang out and talk to for hours like i was literally planning on watching sexy beast tomorrow night so i'm all teed up now ready to go that's great yeah i'm such a fan i didn't even get to talk to him about quadrophenia a film that i adore as well that he made oh i've never seen that i can see it so good all the music by the who yeah oh it's a great movie i always thought i was fine at like so interesting when tough guys like that are such like down-to-earth sweetheart normal you know because they're like if you see him you're like holy shit that guy's gonna beat the shit out of me and then you talk to me like oh he's like the sweet normal kind guy nothing to prove no and no he doesn't and he and he plays tough guys but as he said you know exemplified in sexy beast but a lot of his other roles he he's he brings so many layers to it there's a real always like real pathos to his character i want to hang out with him i know i totally want to hang out with him too i feel like you could he just drops these nuggets of like sort of wisdom that he's kind of picked up along the way and he's as he mentioned like educated through doing what we do and he's been an education for him and it's and it's an education hanging out with a guy like him yeah for sure for sure and so many big movies i probably the biggest one was the departed i think yeah oh yeah one of them one of them and i can't remember who directed that was directed by martin scorsese by lazy but bye bye smart smart wow smartless is 100 organic and artisanally handcrafted by bennett barbaco michael grant terry and rob armjarff smart less