Overview

• Winstone received the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival after leading a career-spanning masterclass.
• He said the business now favors franchises and follower counts, warning that casting often happens remotely and that culturally specific films are harder to make.
• Recalling Marvel’s Black Widow, he described being told to reshoot all his scenes and called the experience a sense of rejection before completing the work under contract.
• He shared on-set stories, including convincing Martin Scorsese to cast him as Jack Nicholson’s confidant in The Departed—right down to wearing his own coat—and praised Steven Spielberg’s distinctive shooting style.
• He remains active on new projects, noting more episodes of Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen and an edited-in-progress biopic of snooker great Jimmy White.