Ray Winstone Interview, Beowulf

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Ray Winstone at the Los Angeles press day for his new movie, "Beowulf,” directed by Robert Zemeckis based on a screenplay by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. "Beowulf” stars Winstone in the title role and Anthony Hopkins as the corrupt King Hrothgar, as well as John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother.

Ray Winstone (Beowulf) was recently seen in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning drama "The Departed” and Anthony Minghella’s "Breaking and Entering” opposite Jude Law and Juliette Binoche. Upcoming films include Steven Spielberg’s fourth installment of "Indiana Jones” opposite Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf and John Hillcoat’s comedy "Death of a Ladies Man” written by Nick Cave.

Winstone won a 1998 British Independent Film Award for Best Actor and earned a BAFTA Award nomination for his performance in Gary Oldman’s "Nil By Mouth.” The following year, he earned another British Independent Film nomination for his work in Tim Roth’s drama "The War Zone.” He received his third British Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actor for his work in "Sexy Beast.” Additionally, he shared a National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble for the 2001 film "Last Orders.” Winstone earned an Australian Film Institute Award nomination for Best Actor for his work in "The Proposition.”

Born in Hackney in the East End of London, Winstone was a champion boxer in school and fought twice for England. He studied acting at the Corona School before director Alan Clarke cast him in the controversial project "Scum,” which was originally made as a BBC play but was banned for its brutally violent content. Later remade as a feature film, "Scum” launched Winstone’s career. Subsequent film credits include "Quadrophenia,” "Ladybird, Ladybird,” "Face,” "The Sea Change,” "The Very Thought of You,” "Agnes Brown” and "Fanny and Elvis.” More recent films include Anthony Minghella’s "Cold Mountain” and Antoine Fuqua’s "King Arthur.” He was the voice of Mr. Beaver in the fantasy blockbuster "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

Winstone has also worked extensively in television, starring in series and television movies. His credits include the title roles in the British tele-films "Henry VIII” and "Sweeney Todd.”

Ray Winstone is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new movie, Beowulf, and how digital magic and the wonders of motion capture technology transformed him into a 6’6” buff warrior with abs of steel:

Q: You don’t look familiar. Who do you play?

RAY WINSTONE: [Laughing] The lizard.

Q: How did you come to be cast in this role?

RAY WINSTONE: Robert Zemeckis had seen me play Henry VIII in a 2-part series we did at home in England. And I think he liked the sound, he liked the performance, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have been there. And I went to meet him. I was working in New York at the time on The Departed, a Martin Scorsese film. And I came down to see him and I read the script. I wanted to meet him anyway. He’s a genius, the man, so I came down and I didn’t know I was coming down to be offered it, I thought I was just coming down to see him. And he told me about seeing me in Henry VIII and I told him my take on the script, what I thought it was about. As I said, I didn’t know too much about Beowolf. And I got the part. And I didn’t really know what it was all about and the way it was going to be filmed. There is nothing you can really look at and think, "Oh, it’s going to look like that,” because it hasn’t been done before. You can look at, which I did, Polar Express, which was great, but without Polar Express we wouldn’t be making what we are doing today because the technology moves it on and the next one they make will be even better. But I still didn’t know when I sat in the chair the other day and watched this film what I was going to be seeing.

And what I loved about the story, without all the 3D, without all that, you’ve still got a great story, and that’s what I was really pleased about.

Q: Why do you think you got the part?

RAY WINSTONE: I think they got me mixed up with someone else! That’s what Bob said. He’d seen me in a few films and Henry VIII really brought it to his attention about the kind of man. And that’s what I always try to do in a film, whatever part you are playing, you find the man first and you let everyone else worry about that. When I set about it, I was talking about being an actor, and people tell stories about actors and the actor himself starts to believe them. You get carried away with it and it just rang home to me somehow, about today as well, as much as the past.

Q: Did you read the original Beowolf?

RAY WINSTONE: No.

Q: What do you think it is about the story that speaks to a modern audience?

To me, what I more or less said was, it’s about being a man of power. Men of power, it goes through presidents, kings, it’s all about sex. Sex is a powerful thing anyway, but for me with Beowolf, he is a young man who is a hero. He’s a brave man who loves adventure. But then stories are told about him and he starts to believe his own stories. And he goes along for the ride anyway. And then when he goes to other places, instead of being there and being afraid, he wants that, he likes that power. He likes what he’s got. And that ambition and that greed, if you like, is the one thing that’s his one downfall. To me, it’s almost like, with Angelina the lizard, the monster in the darkness in the cave is actually the thing inside him. It’s actually that greed and that kind of ambition that kind of eats you away. And by the end of it the one thing he needed to make him happy was lying dead next to him – his son. That is, in a nutshell, what Beowolf was for me. That’s the story for me. Obviously there is a lot more than that.

Q: How did you approach playing this character?

RAY WINSTONE: We really talked about it a lot. We sat down in a room for maybe a week before and talked about the style of the way the thing was going to be and about the Celtic feel to it and the story and all that kind of stuff. Of playing it, it was kind of like, I’m a bit like that anyway. I can make up my mind pretty early, but by the time I get to the set I’ve changed my mind. You actually are waiting until you are working with the other actors because you feed off of them. You give one another ideas. If you make your mind up too early about it and you think about the process of what you are going to be, I’m not saying little bits, I’m talking about making your mind up 100%, then you are very one-dimensional. By the time you come to work you are not listening to what everyone else is saying.

So whether it’s because I can’t work it out unless I’m around someone else who gives me ideas, I don’t know, but I always kind of leave it to the last minute and you kind of find it in the moment and in the atmosphere of what you are doing. The great thing about it was getting your imagination to work again because you didn’t have the luxury of having castles and cliffs and fireballs going off. You had to kind of imagine that and it was like having the imagination of a child again because kids can do that. And it’s something you kind of remember now and take it to another job you work on. You get your imagination working again.

Q: Did you do any special training or preparation for the role?

RAY WINSTONE: It was unnecessary. I had to really look after myself because it was a very physical process anyway. But the one thing Bob Zemeckis said to me, when I asked if I needed to go to a gym, not that I was ever going to get anywhere near that, but he said – ‘No, you can just eat pasta and leave that to me.’ But I’m glad I kind of looked after myself because I had to think of the movement, the movement of a man who is 6’6” who is a warrior with big arms and big legs and the way he would move. I naturally move the way I move, but you have to think about when you turn and that power of someone looking at someone there in the neck. It picks everything up when you go in a fight. It doesn’t miss a thing. You become quite aware of that so your body was a very important part of the work because it gets it. So I had to be quite about the way I moved and move like a warrior. They don’t just do that, stretch out your body and make it look alright, or great in this case, but your movement has got to be spot on. They can’t cheat that.

Q: Were you jealous of your washboard abs in the movie?

RAY WINSTONE: Oh yeah, without any shadow of a doubt! Yeah, I look fantastic.

Q: Has your family seen the movie?

RAY WINSTONE: My wife has seen pictures of it. When we have a cuddle, I think she’s got a picture of Beowolf behind me and I play Beowulf. [Laughs]

Q: Were you really riding a dragon? How was that shot?

RAY WINSTONE: I was riding a dragon of sorts in a way because you’d have maybe a wing that it was made out of and you’d be diving on it from a height and swinging into it. We had things there. There were times when we had a ball on a pole when I’m watching the eye of a dragon, but when you are actually fighting you’ve got a structure there of some sort that you are actually hanging on to. I broke my ribs on it swinging out and coming in and grabbing the heart. I thought I was Errol Flynn. I just swang out and haha! And then I smashed my ribs. Do you know where the gap was in the ribs when I was going to rip the heart out? There was a kind of metal pole there and I got carried away with myself. Thought I was 17 again living it large and swinging, and crash, I done all the ribs. That was all part, but it was a physical job! I had stunt guys. They asked whether I wanted to do the stunts and I said I’ll do whatever you think I’m capable of doing and I ended up doing it all. It’s probably the worst thing I’ll ever say, but I’m glad I did because it helped me doing it.

Q: That was a great moment because we’re really wondering if he’s ever going to manage to get hold of that heart.

RAY WINSTONE: Yeah, without ripping his own heart out I guess.

Q: With this technology you are no longer limited by your age or sex and you could play what you like. Is that exciting for you as an actor?

RAY WINSTONE: I think so. For example, I’m too old to play Henry V. That’s my favorite part out of all the Shakespeare plays because it drove me mad. You watch him and [imitates deep, resonate voice of character playing Henry V] Come on, who told you have to speak like that and do it that way? I can’t buy into that. And Henry V is the one I really love. It’s about England and it’s about passion. And I’m too old to play Henry V now. I can’t play Henry V, but I can now. You can, so you can revisit. Being an old actor and being more mature in your mind and the way you look at things and you can go back and do it. I’m not saying we are going to because it costs a lot of money, but I’d love to do that.

Q: How did you get into Shakespeare?

RAY WINSTONE: I didn’t. I never really, I did one thing called Macbeth where we did it on an estate in Birmingham with a lot of kids from Birmingham who live on an estate and I play Duncan, but he was a drug dealer so it’s a modernization kind of thing. It was alright. I enjoyed doing that, but I don’t know about that. I’ve seen it a million times, but let’s get new, do something new. Shakespeare is great, great stories, I just want to see them done properly.

Q: Do you see any downside to this technology in the sense that it might make actors obsolete?

RAY WINSTONE: We are actors in it. So it hasn’t made us obsolete at all. In fact, it can open doors for us. I don’t think so. I think there is room for everything. They probably said that when cartoons were first made. I think cartoons probably came before film in a way, so I don’t know. It’s advancement. We’ll see where it goes. I think it’s fantastic!

Q: Do accents come easily to you? You seem to be able to do any accent you want.

RAY WINSTONE: No, it doesn’t actually. I never thought I had an ear for accents and some people probably still don’t think that I have, but I was lucky enough to come across Tim Monarch who is an American voice coach and he just explains it to me very simply. I’m not an educated man. I didn’t go to university and all that to understand what vowels and continents are, that’s just not me. I’ve not been a great book reader in my life. I was brought up watching cinema. Maybe in a way that’s a loss, I don’t know, but meeting Tim and just finding sounds, placing your tongue in a certain place and away you go. Off you go and then make it yours. I’ve started to enjoy doing it and bringing that as part of what you do as an actor which I’d never done for years. Maybe that’s why I’d just done what I was doing? I never pushed it out.

Q: How was it working with Robert Zemeckis?

RAY WINSTONE: Every film he seems to make he invents something. So I guess every film he works on is the first time for him in a way, something that he’s doing. But it’s like working with a young kid in a sweet shop. He gets the giggles. He gets the giggles not about what you are doing, but about, I think, what he’s inventing. It’s like, I found a new toffee or something or a new stick of candy. And it’s infectious because you get kind of excited with him. And you don’t know why. I love that. It’s kind of a pleasure to turn up and go to work and I loved it every day. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and go to work. And we worked for six weeks. Six weeks it took for us to make this film and 18 months for them to put it together, but when it ended it was like, can’t we do a bit more?

Q: How was it working for Spielberg on the latest installment of Indiana Jones?

RAY WINSTONE: The same kind of thing really, that’s pace [makes sound of cracking whip] when you crack along. And the way he shoots, you know what film you are doing. If you didn’t know when you turned up, by the time you’ve seen the first shot, you go, ‘Oh, right, Indiana Jones, got it.’ It was an experience.

Q: I suppose you’d be consigned to the tower if you told us anything about Indiana Jones?

RAY WINSTONE: No, I’d have to kill you. I’ve got it in the contract that I’m allowed to kill anyone I tell.

Q: Can you tell us what you play?

RAY WINSTONE: I play a guy called Mac in it.

Q: Is he a good guy?

RAY WINSTONE: Kind of a bit of both.

Q: Have you finished "Death of a Ladies Man”?

RAY WINSTONE: No, we haven’t started the film yet. Nick Cave wrote it and John Hillcoat, but John was offered a film to do in Hollywood and he spoke to us about it. Well, you should go and do the film in Hollywood and make sure you do it really well, John, because it will helps us when we do Ladies Man. It’s a fantastic script. Nick Cave wrote it and I did The Proposition with him and it’s beautiful and it’s dark and everything. It’s the kind of stuff I like.

Q: Do you play a ladies man?

RAY WINSTONE: Kind of, but probably not looking as good as this guy.

Q: Is it in a British or an American setting?

RAY WINSTONE: It’s in Brighton, near the south of England.

Q: What ever became of Kathy Burke?

RAY WINSTONE: Kathy is not acting. She’s directing. She kind of fell out of love with acting. She’s fantastic. She’s an old friend of mine. I’ve known her for years and year and years. And she’s been directing plays. She’s a great director. She directed me in a play years ago called Mr. Thomas. She writes it. She writes and goes over there and answers it and that’s how she writes. And she is hilarious. She’s a very, very funny girl and loves directing and writing so that’s what she’s doing.

Q: Thank you.

RAY WINSTONE: Thank you very much. See you later.

"Beowulf” opens in theaters on November 16th.