{"id":81391,"date":"2025-08-19T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81391\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T14:29:07","slug":"ray-winstone-recalls-frustration-with-black-widow-reshoots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81391\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Winstone Recalls Frustration With ‘Black Widow’ Reshoots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBritish actor Ray Winstone<\/a> (\u201cThe Departed\u201d), who is at the Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a> 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\u2019s seen over the years, the actor said he feels the industry has \u201cbecome a business.\u201d He also dwelled on the difference between blockbusters, such as those from Marvel<\/a>, and what he calls \u201ccultural films.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s all about selling tickets,\u201d he said. \u201cWe see what\u2019s happening in Hollywood with Marvel and all that kind of stuff\u2026 There is room for it, and it\u2019s fun, but it takes away from getting cultural films made, which are best for the actors, [and] are really good acting parts. It\u2019s getting more and more difficult to do that. If you\u2019re not on social media now, they might not even consider you for a movie because they want a fanbase to come with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWinstone also briefly recalled his very own Marvel experience shooting 2021\u2019s \u201cBlack Widow,\u201d in which he played villain Dreykov. \u201cI 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\u2019d become black widows. We used to get applauded on set. It was probably the best thing I\u2019ve done for a really long time,\u201d he said of the early shooting experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThen I come home after finishing the job and get a call saying we need to do some reshoots,\u201d he continued. \u201cI say: how many scenes? [Cate] says \u2018all of them.\u2019 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\u2019t do it. I\u2019d already done it. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m not doing it now. I\u2019ve done it. That\u2019s how it\u2019s going to be.\u2019 That\u2019s rejection, you know? There\u2019s nothing worse than doing something, leaving it on the floor, and then being told it\u2019s not right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBack to social media, the actor said it affects young actors much more, but he still feels the pressure. \u201cYou have to go on Instagram, and I don\u2019t want to go on fucking Instagram. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a good thing, but if it brings people to the cinema and creates new jobs, then I\u2019ll do it. But I\u2019d like to see more cultural films being made, that\u2019s where good cinema is. From my point of view, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother recent industry change that frustrates the veteran is the lack of contact between actors and directors during casting. \u201cCasting today seems to be so different. My daughter is an actress and people don\u2019t necessarily meet the actors anymore; directors don\u2019t meet the actors anymore. Everything is done on a phone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t 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,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cI think it\u2019s something we are losing more and more in England, and I think that\u2019s 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?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking about what he calls \u201ccultural cinema,\u201d Winstone talked at length about some of the highlights of his career working in independent films, such as Gary Oldman\u2019s 1997 social realist drama \u201cNil by Mouth.\u201d The actor called Oldman \u201cthe best director I\u2019ve ever worked with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGary 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,\u201d he recalled of first joining the project. \u201cThe film is about social issues and the places where we come from, and it was bang on the money. It\u2019s about the underbelly of where I\u2019m from. I don\u2019t come from a family like that, but I\u2019ve seen it and I heard it. It was a very brave bit of writing. When I read it, I got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother directorial debut that shaped Winstone\u2019s career is Jonathan Glazer\u2019s \u201cSexy Beast.\u201d Speaking about the film, the actor said it was like \u201cmodern-day Shakespeare.\u201d Of working with Ben Kingsley, the actor remembered having to wait for his co-star\u2019s schedule to align so they could shoot the film, quipping about his Oscar-winning titular role in \u201cGandhi.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis \u2018Gandhi\u2019 turned up\u2026\u201d he said, amusingly, of that first meeting. \u201cWhen you watch his performance as Gandhi and then in this film as a psychopath, it shows you the range of this man.\u201d As for the film itself, Winstone said he was first attracted to it because he saw it as a \u201clove story,\u201d and he wanted to \u201cbe the lover\u201d and be the person who is spoken to kindly and lovingly instead of the usual thugs and bad guys he played onscreen. \u201cIt\u2019s nice. I kind of liked all that, there\u2019s something beautiful about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the opposite end of the spectrum, the actor recalled playing the titular role on Robert Zemeckis\u2019 \u201cBeowulf,\u201d calling the big CGI project \u201clike theater comes to cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Beowulf\u2019 was totally different from anything I\u2019ve 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\u2019s just painted after.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOf working alongside Angelina Jolie<\/a> in the project, Winstone called the American actor \u201cfantastic to work with.\u201d \u201cWhat an actress. She\u2019s not just beautiful, she can do the thing. And a good kisser as well,\u201d he joked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWinstone 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 \u201cThe Departed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went to meet him in London on a Sunday morning,\u201d he said. \u201cI was off playing another policeman, and I didn\u2019t want to play a policeman. I sit down with Marty, I call him Marty now, and I said, \u2018This Jack Nicholson character doesn\u2019t have anyone to talk to, so how do you find out about him? So I\u2019ll play his mate.\u2019 We kind of had a conversation along those lines. That\u2019s how it came about. I actually invited him for Sunday dinner, and he said he had other things to do [laughs]. That\u2019s how things happen sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for what\u2019s next, the actor is locked for the next season of Guy Ritchie\u2019s \u201cThe Gentlemen.\u201d He will also soon be seen in Steven Waddington\u2019s untitled Jimmy White biopic alongside Aneurin Barnard, which he revealed is currently being edited. \u201cThere are a few little things about the edit that need to be looked at. Barnard playing Jimmy White was fantastic. It\u2019s a really brilliant [film] but just needs sharpening up to be ready to come out.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor Ray Winstone (\u201cThe Departed\u201d), who is at the Sarajevo Film Festival to receive the Honorary Heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9455,49,48,75,3078,49070,49071],"class_list":["post-81391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-marvel","tag-ray-winstone","tag-sarajevo-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}