Brit actor plays it cool in Mel Gibson thriller

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Ray Winstone speaks softly and carries a big gun in Edge of Darkness.

LOS ANGELES -- As endlessly posted Internet video shows, Mel Gibson is a guy capable of exploding with unseemly curses during live television interviews.

But let's forget Mel for a minute and concentrate on a guy who really knows his way around an expletive.

In the movie Edge of Darkness, Ray Winstone plays a world-weary intelligence operative who acts as a conduit between the world of shadowy government conspiracy and Gibson's cop character, a grieving father trying to learn why his daughter was targeted for murder.

At a press conference for the film, it was Gibson who got most of the attention, no surprise given that this is the first starring role for the embattled actor since he starred in Signs back in 2002.

But Winstone commands attention anyway, just by sheer force of presence. The 52-year-old London-born actor has a working-class English voice as rough as a Soho cobblestone road. Next to Gibson's display of high tension (he's quit smoking... again), Winstone actually comes off as a grounded presence, injecting off-colour humour into the Q and A as if to relieve the press conference of its tension. (When Gibson talks about an upcoming "Viking movie," Winstone jokes: "I thought you were talking about a f ing movie.")

The busy actor is an equally cool presence in the movie. His character, named Jedburgh, implacably guides the hero towards the industrialist responsible for the killing, playing the role quietly and close to the vest. That in itself is something different for Winstone, who has tended to play more passionate characters, ranging from the title role of Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf to his ultra-virile monarch in the 2003 BBC miniseries Henry VIII.

"It's funny because the parts you really want to play are the emotional parts. I do anyway, personally," Winstone says.

By contrast, the role of Jedburgh required Winstone "to sit across the table or sit in the garden watching someone play the emotional part," he says.

He describes Jedburgh as "a man with no emotion who's seen death and created death.

"I've met people like that, years ago, who have been through the Second World War or people who were members of the SAS," Winstone says. "They have these eyes that kind of burn into you and look at the wall behind you. You can't tell them lies."

Winstone says the reward of playing such a furtive character is that it simply allows him to work with people he admires.

"It's always a blessing because you're working with people who are talented and know their job and know their business," he says.

Edge of Darkness is currently playing at Grant Park, Polo Park, St. Vital and Towne cinemas.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2010 D3