Ray Winstone can make an aggressive man recognisable without asking us to excuse him. We value him most when the part asks for more than a convincing threat, as it does in Nil by Mouth.
Fi1m perspective
In Nil by Mouth (1997), the people around Ray Winstone’s Ray seem accustomed to his aggression. That familiarity makes the performance hard to watch: he belongs to this family, and they know what he can do. We were frightened by how ordinary he made this abusive husband seem. Winstone gives us a recognisable man without inviting us to make allowances for him.
The tough parts began early, with Carlin, the violent borstal inmate in Alan Clarke’s Scum (1979). Television and supporting film work followed through the 1980s and 1990s, before Nil by Mouth brought the breakthrough. His gravelly voice and working-class hardness make him an obvious choice for another tough part, sometimes too obvious. A director can employ those qualities and leave the actor with little else to do; being convincing as a threat is a limited brief.
Oldman gives him more to do by keeping Ray inside a family life that also contains jokes and loyalty. The violence never becomes a separate attraction, and Winstone’s presence never requires us to forget the people living with it. Kathy Burke is deeply moving alongside him. The film runs a little long, and an explanatory speech tells us what the acting has already made clear.
Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (2000) gave him Gal Dove, a retired safecracker, and helped open the way to Hollywood. The part makes room for the vulnerability that can get lost when he is used simply to supply menace. Martin Scorsese cast him as Boston mob enforcer Mr French in The Departed (2006). Robert Zemeckis gave him the lead in the motion-capture film Beowulf (2007).
We would like his next director to resist using that voice as sufficient proof of character. Give him something beyond the familiar hard-man assignment and leave room for the vulnerability, without insisting that it earns forgiveness. Start with Nil by Mouth, provided the evening can accommodate a gruelling family drama.
Biography
Ray Winstone is an English actor. He was born on 19 February 1957 in Hackney, London. He trained at the Corona Stage Academy and made his screen debut in the 1979 film Scum.
Winstone is known for tough-guy roles in films including Nil by Mouth (1997), Sexy Beast (2000), The Departed (2006) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He voiced characters in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), and appeared as Growltiger in Cats (2019). He has worked with directors including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.
