Ray Winstone

Ray Winstone is the person you would want to be standing next to in a crisis. He has the unshockable calm of a man who has seen it all. It’s clear why he was chosen to deliver what has since become his most famous line, “I’m the daddy now” in the 1979 film, Scum.

A West Ham boy to the core, Ray spent his childhood helping out on his parents’ fruit and vegetable stall. When he demonstrated an ability to act, his family scraped together enough money to send him to drama school – from where he was expelled in 1976 for puncturing his teacher’s tyre, miffed at discovering that he was the only pupil not to be invited to the Christmas party.

It was a blessing in disguise. On the day he was expelled, Ray traipsed up to meet some classmates at an audition, and ended up being awarded the lead part of Carlin in Scum. Despite the film’s success, Ray’s career faltered. He struggled for years doing low- profile acting jobs, until a chance meeting with Gary Oldman at the funeral of Scum director, Alan Clarke. This secured the part that would establish him as one of Britain’s most iconic actors: Ray in Nil By Mouth.

His face is just as easily understood as that of a soft-centered lover, as it is of a calculated killer. Ray represents more than just the working class hero; he is a husband, a father, a businessman, a gambler, a criminal, a king.

Ray’s role as a family man has become as recognisable as his on-screen personas. He met his wife, Elaine, on the set of That Summer in 1979, and the two have three daughters, Lois, Jaime and Ellie. Lois is a singer, Jaime is a successful actress and Ellie is, well, a bit too young for all that at ten years old.

Armed with a camera and a transit van full of drinks, we crashed Ray’s family home on a late summer afternoon to photograph his wife, children and mother-in-law, Francis – and immediately felt part of the clan.

Read the full interview in Issue One of The Hunger, on sale now.

Ray is starring in Snow White and the Huntsmen, out in summer 2012.