Ray Winstone was ready to quit “Black Widow” over the reshoots that Marvel demanded.
The actor, who played villain Dreykov in the 2021 “Avengers” spin-off film, told the Radio Times that while the overall production was “fine,” the reshooting process almost led him to beg to be recast.
“It was fine until you have to do the reshoots,” Winstone said. “Then you find out that a few producers have come down, and your performance is too much, it’s too strong… That’s the way Marvel works. It can be soul-destroying because you feel like you’re doing great work.”
He continued, “I actually said, ‘You ought to recast it because that was it for me.’ And you end up doing it again because you’re contracted to do it. Otherwise you end up in court. It’s like being kicked in the balls.”
Winstone next appears in “The Gentlemen” and reunites with director Guy Ritchie.
“He’s pretty clear what he wants,” Winstone said of Ritchie. “Then he changes his mind! He does that all the time, by all accounts. But as long as you’re up to speed and you know what you’re doing, then it’s easy to change. If you ain’t done your homework, then you’re fucked. Because he’s a very clever boy.”
Winstone previously admitted to the The Belfast Telegraph that his career is a balance between scripts he’s adored and just getting a paycheck.
“I’ve been lucky to work on a lot of films that I consider good scripts, me personally. I’ve also worked on films that I’ve had to do because I’ve had to pay the rent,” Winstone said at the time. “But that’s part of the game, and then you work on them and try and make them better films, with help from the director and the people you’re working with. But it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Winstone’s fellow actors like Anthony Hopkins, Christian Bale, and Dakota Johnson have also spoken out about the “soul-crushing” elements of comic book movies. Hopkins called it “pointless” to act in front of a green screen for the “Thor” films, and “Madame Web” star Johnson said working with blue screens was “absolutely psychotic.”
