Ray Winstone has launched a blistering verdict on the current state of the British film industry, arguing it has surrendered its identity by trying to imitate Hollywood’s approach to production.
The 69-year-old veteran urged the industry to create more homegrown projects rather than mimicking overseas models.
“We’ve been caught up with the American way of making films and have lost a lot of our culture when it comes to movies – especially those good dramas about life,” he said.
The Hackney-born star singled out France as a country that has resisted the pull of globalised filmmaking, sticking to its own way of doing things.
Ray Winstone’s CV boasts roles in some of the world’s biggest films | PA
“The French never worried about the international film market. They are stubborn b*****ds, but they make their own stuff and I praise them for that,” he added to The Sunday Times’ Culture magazine.
In the same interview, Mr Winstone revealed he once challenged an unnamed director after witnessing him inappropriately touching an actress during filming.
“I had this director once. I was in a scene where I had to pick up this girl, and the director wanted to show me what to do. But he was groping her,” he told the magazine.
“That was it. I said, ‘Don’t you dare do that.’ He abused his power, took advantage, and she was a good kid, you know, who seemed a little lost. Anyway, it was dealt with.”
The actor, who has described himself as the “Kate Moss of the geezer world”, said that in previous eras, inappropriate behaviour on set was typically handled informally by crew members.
“Back in the day, if there was a wrong’un on set, 99 times out of 100 it was sorted, either by the hairy-arse riggers or sparks,” he said. “I’ve done it myself too, taken someone to the side to give them a slap or to tell them, in no uncertain terms, to behave. But it’s a different world today.”
Mr Winstone is returning to screens this week as Bobby Glass in the second series of Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, which lands on Netflix on Thursday.
The first series, which debuted in 2024, centres on Theo James’s Eddie Horniman, an aristocrat who discovers a vast cannabis operation hidden within his inherited estate. Kaya Scodelario and Daniel Ings also feature in the cast.
Ray Winstone has hit out at the British film industry
|
PA
With a career stretching back more than five decades, Mr Winstone remains one of Britain’s most recognisable screen presences.
He first made his name in the 1979 borstal drama Scum, before going on to star in Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth in 1997 and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in 2000, as well as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed in 2006.
His role in the latter wasn’t plain sailing, with Mr Winstone publicly revealing he struggled to get on with co-star Jack Nicholson.
“We just didn’t get on,” Mr Winstone told GB News stars Eamonn Holmes and Paul Coyte during a podcast appearance in 2025.
Ray Winstone recently celebrated turning 69
|
PA
“I just found him… Listen, he’s getting older, and maybe there are a lot of things going on with him. I didn’t like him; I thought he was so far up his own a**e it was unbelievable.
“And he was very rude! He was very rude to me, he was rude to my wife, if he had been a younger man, I’d have definitely knocked him out.”
Mr Winstone did reserve some praise for the Oscar winner’s body of work. “But you’ve got to give him… because he’s an older man, much older than me… He’s fantastic at what he does, brilliant at what he does,” he went on.
“He’s a great writer as well, by all accounts, at least that’s what he kept telling us.”