Actor Ray Winstone Announces Career Move

Due to a writer’s strike in Hollywood, acting work has been scarce, prompting the well-known actor to find a new job which may come as a surprise to many.

London-born actor, Ray Winstone, 66, is currently living in Sicily, where apart from a new line of work, he also announced that he’s kicked the smoking habit, in a podcast interview for Pound for Pound, on July 5.

Winstone’s New Job

The Sexy Beast star reveals he has taken on labouring work as the writer’s strike has had an impact on available acting roles.

The actor, known for his tough-guy film parts is aiming to improve his fitness with some manual labour, close to his retreat, high in the Sicilian mountains.

He said: ‘I’ve been doing a bit of labouring out here, a bit of graft. I hurt my back a couple of years ago, so I’ve been building my back up a little bit.’

Quits 44-Year-Old Habit

Winstone, whose previous roles have found him under the guidance of legendary directors such as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, also revealed that after being a smoker for 44 years, he’d finally packed it in: ‘I gave up smoking about five or six months ago.

‘One day I just bought a packet of cigarettes and I lit one up and went, “What are you doing? I don’t even enjoy this.” I just threw them away, and I feel so much better for it. I loved an oily, didn’t I?’ Oily is cockney rhyming slang for ‘oily rag – fag.’

Speaking on why he started smoking in the first place he said: ‘I had to chain smoke in a film with the Sex Pistols and The Clash…that’s where I started, really. But I bum-suck them. I never really took them down, I wasn’t a proper smoker in a way. A bit like cigar smoking.’

During the interview he revealed he was staying alone: ‘Don’t tell no one, though, in case someone comes up and robs me. I’ve got a great big bat with me and all that. But it’s lovely. I sit outside and all you hear is wild animals.’