Ray Winstone (1957-) b. Hackney, London, England.

Born in Hackney, London, former champion schoolboy boxer Ray Winstone made a stunning movie debut in Alan Clarke’s uncompromising borstal depiction Scum (1979); he followed this by appearing in another cult youth-orientated film, The Who’s Quadrophenia (1979). Continuing to work in film and television, his memorable portrayal of a wife-beater in Gary Oldman‘s Nil By Mouth (1997) earned him international recognition and defined him the archetypal Cockney hard-man. Since then, he has starred in Antonia Bird‘s crime drama, Face (1997), and Tim Roth‘s harrowing tale of child abuse, The War Zone (1998). He was highly impressive as a gangster who tries to turn his back on crime in Sexy Beast (2000), and the son of an East End butcher in Last Orders (2002). He won further acclaim in The Departed (2006) and was digitalised in idealised form to become the eponymous muscle-rippling warrior in the fantasy film Beowulf (2007).