Ray Winstone: Top geezer gets labour of love off his chest

With three of his films out this month and another two in the pipeline, retirement is the last thing on Ray Winstone's mind.

"Oh come on, I've got to pay the rent and I've got three daughters. Are you joking?" says the 52-year-old. "I'm a working man, I am, so I've got to work. If I'm a lorry driver, I'll have to drive a lorry every day. That's what I do.

"I don't want to be sitting around, you die sitting around. If I retire, what am I going to do? People retire and they go down to the pub. Besides, I like my work, it's fun."

Dressed down in a black cashmere jumper and jeans, Winstone is a highly passionate man, when it comes to his career and family.

Born and bred in Hackney, he now lives in Essex with his wife Elaine, and daughters Lois, Jaime and Ellie – as well as his two female Rustic Norfolk Blue pigs that he's raised since birth.

Best known for tough guy parts, Winstone rose to fame after winning a lead role in Alan Clarke's BBC play Scum – and he's since branched off from acting into directing and producing.

This month he's on screen in Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and alongside Mel Gibson in thriller Edge of Darkness.

But it's British drama 44 Inch Chest that has proved the biggest labour of love for Winstone.

The film, which he co-produced, was conceived nine years ago, but failed to get off the ground, due to lack of financial backing.

"The idea first came up off the back of the success of Sexy Beast (in 2000], and we thought we'd have no trouble in finding someone to look at this, but the problem in a way is the film reads like a stage play and knowing what I know now, I can see why people shied away from it – you need someone very clever as a director to sort that out and bring it off the page," he explains.

The film, which also stars British stalwarts Tom Wilkinson, Ian McShane and John Hurt, centres around jilted gangster Colin Diamond (Winstone), who seeks revenge after discovering his wife has been unfaithful.

"It's about love, and how you can actually smother someone, and the consequences of when someone says, 'I don't love you any more'. I start that film having a nervous breakdown, so it's quite brutal, it's quite explicit in the language and the mental violence of it, but it's a beautiful film. I don't think it's a bad thing to show violence as it really is. I think it's quite responsible because it shows it's painful and it hurts a lot of people."

It's this readiness to tackle difficult subjects that inspired him to make Cold Kiss, an anti-knife drama made in memory of late teenage actor Robert Knox, who was stabbed to death in 2008.

"I decided to do it because I've got children," he explains. "When I was a kid, the worst thing that could happen is you have a fight with the kid next door, you have a punch-up and you go home. Today, more and more kids walk down the street and could be stabbed, attacked

or shot."

Winstone is equally well known in Hollywood thanks to roles in films like The Departed and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but he has no plans to relocate Stateside.

"I like it there and I like working there but it'd be like living above a shop," he says adamantly.

"I'm an Englishman and I live in England. It's great to go away and work in the sun and all that, but there's nothing like when you're in the green fields and the wind's in your face and you have to put your overcoat on.

And although his film career spans more than three decades, Winstone admits he still has trouble seeing himself as a star.

"I'm amazed that a little fat geezer from east London is doing what I'm doing," he says.

Winstone's winning ways

Raymond Andrew Winstone was born in Hackney, on February 19, 1957.

His first taste of acting was in a school play: "I don't know why I did it, I might have fancied someone or something, but I liked it."

Two of his daughters – Lois and Jaime – are actresses: "I tried to (give them advice) but they're very strong-willed. They like to be left alone to work it out for themselves and I like that independence in them."

He reckons the British film industry could do with a boost: "I think the one thing we're lacking is how to sell films. If you can't sell the movie, what's the point of making it in the first place?"

He's very proud of his pet pigs: "They're as fit as a butcher's dog, they're fabulous!"