Biography for
Ray Winstone (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

19 February 1957, Hackney, London, England, UK

Birth Name

Raymond Andrew Winstone

Height

5' 10" (1.78 m)

Mini Biography

Ray Winstone was born in Hackney Hospital, London. He moved to Enfield, at age 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 (1979). He has appeared in numerous TV series over the past 20 years including "Robin Hood" (1984), Palmer (1991) (TV), "Birds of a Feather" (1989), "Between the Lines" (1992), "Ghostbusters of East Finchley" (1995) and, most recently, "Births, Marriages and Deaths" (1999). 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 (1999), and The War Zone (1999) (directed by Tim Roth).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Alys-2 <acarter@dhac.prestel.co.uk>

Spouse

Elaine Winstone

(1979 - present) 3 children

Trade Mark

Hard, gritty voice

A tough guy character

Trivia

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 the London-based hip-hop group "Crack Village" who also played his on-screen daughter in Last Orders (2001) and got a part in four episodes of "The Bill" (1984), Jaime Winstone (born 1985) also an actress with ambitions to be a director, and Ellie Rae Winstone (born 2001).

Was offered the role of Jimmy McNulty in "The Wire" (2002), which he turned down because he didn't want to move to Baltimore, away from his family. The role instead went to Dominic West.

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.

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 Ghostbusters (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.

If you can get in a ring with 2000 people watching and be smacked around by another guy, then walking onstage isn't hard.

Where Are They Now

(September 1997) In the Isle of Man, filming Darkness Falls (1999) ("Dangerous Obsessions").