Ray Winstone Quotes

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Ray Winstone

Profession : Actor

Birth : February 19, 1957

Working with Scorsese was an absolute dream, and one of my favourite ever jobs was 'Beowulf' because it was just pure acting. Your imagination explodes as you try to imagine you're fighting a dragon or whatever.

Ray Winstone

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. 'Alas, poor Yorick,' that's about death. And in 'Romeo and Juliet' everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

Ray Winstone

The thing about villains is most people play them with the shifty eyes and all that, whereas I play them as good guys. 'Cos everyone thinks they're a goodie, don't they?

Ray Winstone

I pile on the weight when I work. All that location catering's not good for the love handles. I lose a bit when I'm not working, but I love my food and the occasional snifter.

Ray Winstone

On every job you do, you've got to raise your game. My ambition is to just get better and better every job you do - you should never stop trying to get better. You have to teach yourself new things - I don't think you necessarily learn them from other people because you have your own style of doing things, but hopefully you get better.

Ray Winstone

Hollywood don't always pay a lot of money. Because we're English they think we're cheap!

Ray Winstone

I'm probably not very funny. The scripts just don't come in, or the ones that do aren't that good. I suppose I'm just an old drama queen, really.

Ray Winstone

Well, you create your own persona, don't you? And you have to live with that. But the people that I meet, they don't think that I'm a lunatic. And if they do, then that's OK, because it means that I'm playing the parts all right.

Ray Winstone

I just love westerns. One of my favourite actors is John Wayne, probably one of the most underrated actors there's ever been. He's quite an incredible actor.

Ray Winstone

I remember years ago I was an extra, just an extra, and instead of asking me to move - he was a big fella - the director just picked me up and moved me. And I headbutted him. You know, he shouldn't have done that, but I shouldn't have done that either. I just done it.

Ray Winstone

We don't have nannies and all that, we look after our own kids. It's just what you do. If you want a big family that's just what you do, isn't it?

Ray Winstone

At acting school people didn't speak like me. It was all received pronunciation - 'ow now brown cow.'

Ray Winstone

Every job I take, within minutes I'm thinking, 'I can't do this.' I think it's what makes me work. People think I just swagger in and do it. But I doubt myself all the time. It's what pushes me, what makes me work harder. The older I get, the less I take for granted.

Ray Winstone

If they didn't call you a tough guy, then what else would they call you? Something worse than that? I'm playing parts, and if they call you that, it's because I played the part right.

Ray Winstone

I'm quite happy with the body of work that I've done, and I've done some really good work over the years that I'm proud of. I'm proud of some of the people that I've worked with, been lucky to have worked with.

Ray Winstone

I'm a lucky boy! I could be holding a gun in Afghanistan. There's boys out there doing what they've got to do, and there's people digging holes, and there's people driving buses. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Ray Winstone

I love to be the lead, but you can't always be the lead.

Ray Winstone

I'm dying to play a nice guy! No one's willing to cast me. They know I'm all right at bashing people up, but they don't know if I can do the other stuff. And I can.

Ray Winstone

I'm away so much I've had to learn to cook, and I find it relaxing after filming. I make stews and liver and bacon, and an Italian mate taught me how to make a mean puttanesca sauce.

Ray Winstone

I know I've got to pay some tax, but I hate the fact that they collect millions of pounds a day from the congestion charge and I don't see anything or anyone benefitting from it. Where are the new hospitals?

Ray Winstone