June 17, 2002
Teletext
From Ripley's Game to Cold Mountain
by Simon Holden

He's not quite famous enough to be mobbed but Ray Winstone still has enough dough to turn down a seven-figure TV offer from American giant HBO.

The Plaistow-born ex-boxer has just returned from the chaotic set of Ripley's Game in Rome and Berlin. Next he will be off to Romania to meet Anthony Minghella and Nicole Kidman, for Cold Mountain.

"There has got to be an easier way to make a film than Ripley's Game," Winstone laughs.

"It was Italians telling Americans what to do and then everything had to be discussed. All I wanted to do was get the film done and go home. Chaos.

"Working with Dougray Scott was brilliant," he adds. "But we haven't been told anything, I've no idea when it's coming out." One suspects the final product won't be a classic.

Winstone may have the manner and geezer voice of a born East End car salesman. But he'll need to master the accent of a 19th-century American redneck called Teach for Cold Mountain.

"I need a voice coach but I won't do too much homework on the subject before I go," he admits. "I'm one of those people who doesn't know how I'll play a role until I get to a set and meet the director and speak to the cast."

HBO offered Winstone a seven-figure deal to star in a crime drama called The Wire.

"It would have meant spending seven months in Baltimore," he says. "My girls are 20, 16 and one years old. If I'd done that job I'd have never seen them. I'm lucky I get good scripts and I can stay in or near Britain."

Winstone, 45, has been married to the same woman for 20 years, a fact that makes him proud. But his latest role as a disillusioned detective in ITV1's Lenny Blue.

It centres on the murders of a drugs baron but delves into Lenny's home life.

In one scene he returns to find his daughter having sex with her middle-aged boyfriend on the sofa. Lenny goes ape, as Winstone might say.

"Imagine finding a 45-year-old fella on top of your daughter when you get into your own house! You're not going to make him a cup of tea?" he says.

Winstone is forthright on the real drug epidemic in modern Britain: "We know that several countries are paying off their national debts with drugs money. I think our government could sort it out tomorrow if they wanted.

"They know the problem comes from Bolivia, Afghanistan and Colombia. All they need to do is stop it growing there. Cut it off at source. Our government should stop fooling us."

© Teletext Limited 2002.