Biography for
Ray Winstone

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Mini Biography

Born in London, Ray Winstone was an amateur boxer who won all of his senior fights. He was therefore a natural for the role of boxer Kenny Fox in the TV series "Fox", which started his acting career. Ray has appeared in films such as "Scum", "Quadrophenia", "That Summer", and "Tank Malling". He has appeared in TV series too numerous to list, which include "Robin of Sherwood (1984)", "Minder", "Boon", "Cats Eyes", "Pulaski", "Palmer", "Get Back", and his most recent one, "The Ghost Busters of East Finchley".

Mini Biography

Ray Winstone was born in Hackney Hospital, London. He moved to Enfield aged seven, where his father and mother had a fruit and vegetable business, and he went to school at Edmonton County. He started boxing at the age of twelve at the famous Repton Amateur Boxing Club, was three times London Schoolboy Champion and fought twice for England, UK. In ten years of boxing he won over 80 medals and trophies. Ray studied acting at the Corona School before being cast by director Alan Clarke as 'Carlin' in the BBC Play production of 'Scum'. He has appeared in numerous tv series over the past 20 years including 'Robin of Sherwood', 'Palmer', 'Birds of a Feather', 'Between The Lines', 'The Ghostbusters of East Finchley', and most recently 'Births, Marriages and Deaths'. His film career has burgeoned since his award-winning role in Gary Oldman's 'Nil By Mouth' (1997), and he recently starred in 'Fanny and Elvis', 'The Mammy' and 'The War Zone' (directed by Tim Roth).

Spouse

Trade Mark

Hard, gritty voice.

A tough guy character

Trivia

Starred in Nil By Mouth (Directed by Gary Oldman) and The War Zone (directed by Tim Roth). Tim Roth and Gary Oldman are good friends and these happen to be directorial debuts for both of them.

The Robin of Sherwood International fanclub can be reached by sending a SASE or IRC to Spirit of Sherwood, 1276 W. Marshall, Ferndale, Michigan 48220, USA or email ChrisRHood@aol.com

Has three children, Lois Winstone (born 1982), a singer with London-based hip-hop group Crack Village who also played his on-screen daughter in Last Orders and got a part in four episodes of "The Bill", Jaime Winstone (born 1985) also an actress with ambitions to be a director, and Ellie (born 2001).

Recently turned down a considerable amount of money to star in a big-budget police drama in the US because he didn't want to drag his family over to Baltimore for seven months of the year for five years - and he didn't want one-year-old Ellie to grow up with an American accent.

Is currently learning to ride a horse.

Will be conducting an Acting Masterclass at the Cinemagic World screen Festival for Young People 2002, in Belfast N.Ireland.

Ray and the late Robert Addie, with whom he starred on the TV Series Robin of Sherwood (1984), have both starred in movies about King Arthur. Robert Addie played Mordred in John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) and Ray plays Sir Bors in Antoine Fuqua's "King Arthur" (2004).

Supports West Ham United Football Club

Starred in the short lived TV series "Ghostbusters of East Finchley" (1995). Although this series was completely unrelated to Ghost Busters (1984), the original Ghostbusters had characters named Ray and Winston.

Son of a greengrocer.

One of 105 people invited to join AMPAS in 2008.

Personal Quotes

"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."

"I'm not a successful Hollywood actor. The Hollywood stuff hasn't come out yet. It might come out and I might be shit."

"Hollywood don't always pay a lot of money. Because we're English they think we're cheap! And you haven't got to be the greediest man in the world. If you want to do something, you go and do it. What's the point of you being paid a lot of money if you haven't got the quality of the film? In the long run you're not doing yourself any favors because you're going to end up in a piece of shit."

"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."

"Unless it's your business or something, bankrupt just means you can't have a bank account."

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.

Where Are They Now

(September 1997) In the Isle of Man, filming "Dangerous Obsessions" ("Darkness Falls").

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