Next on the list of British Emmy successes, Ray Winstone, one of our favorite all-time actors, in Vincent.
Vincent is a show about a private detective and to that extent, has a lot in common with almost every other show you've ever seen concerning a private detective. In each episode, a case is referred to Vincent and he cracks it.
Vincent is the traditional television (private) detective whose life is falling apart because his wife or girlfriend isn't willing to put up with the vicissitudes of a (private) detective's life. He didn't give her enough attention. He didn't show up when he promised. Accordingly, his attractive girlfriend has left him for his friend, an allegedly sensitive policeman (though we certainly never see any evidence of this) called Driscoll who talks to her and listens when she talks to him.
In other words, it's the same show you've seen over and over, only none of those other shows had Ray Winstone or this attractive cast.
I've had a crush on Winstone ever since I saw Sexy Beast. He was born to play the role of your basic London bull-necked Saxon thug/cop/ex-con/soldier. In the roles that fit him best, he growls through every scene in a cockney accent which despite long years of training (through hundreds of hours of listening to Rumcove's estuary mumblings from the other side of the Atlantic) I often need subtitles to understand.
He's every woman's ideal bit of rough, as one of my friends remarked. Though he's middle-aged and slightly overweight, it's never hard to believe that any number of beautiful younger women would fall for him. Here's a quote from the man himself:
[quote begins from Ray Winstone---I'm the Daddy, but My Little Girl is Boss (in the Mirror.co.uk)]
Meanwhile, his TV tough guy roles have included Tough Love and Lenny Blue. Strangely, playing scary, violent brutes has made Ray an unlikely sex symbol.
"If people think I'm sexy, then the world has gone mad," he says, shaking his head in disbelief.
"I'm 48 years old with a fat stomach and cropped hair. Sex appeal? I think you've been talking to the men in strait-jackets.
"Maybe it's because people mix me up with the parts I play - dangerous men with a weak side. But I love that. I don't mind showing a weak side. We all know geezers can be macho, but the weaknesses are the strengths."
[quote ends]
Yes, exactly. The fact, is Ray Winstone has that hieratic combination of personal and physical qualities that add up to charisma, whatever the hell charisma is. We all know it when we see it. It can't be bought or acquired; you have to be born with it or earn it.
Anyway, Vincent. He's outwardly a hard guy or looks as if he ought to be. Losing his girlfriend Kath or Cath, as awful as any right-thinking woman would find her, has maimed him. He's like the guy in the Bob Dylan song, afflicted with a pain "that stops and starts" like a corkscrew through his heart; or the guy in the Paul Simon who says that losing love is like a window in your heart where everybody feels the wind blow.
At intervals during the course of various and sundry private detective things, investigations and such, he seems okay, till he sees or hears something that brings it all back. When the cold wind blows in him, it blows hard. He is a genius at conveying the kind of anguish a strong man can feel and must (according to his lights) keep the lid on. Every now and then, the lid blows off. There was one amazing scene where the big man is sitting on the edge of a bed in a cheap hotel crying desolately into his hands, shaking all over with grief and fear.
He's not good at hiding his pain from his co-workers, including the beautiful brown-eyed Beth who very much fancies him and who never really succeeds in snagging his attention. He's attracted instead to women who look like Kath and who just as horrible in different ways. The end of the first series left it up in the air whether he'd ever be able to accept what "Beff" had to offer. I hope BBC America lets us have the second series so we can find out.
I can't think of an actor I'd rather see gain the Emmy (or any kind of accolade). Well done, Ray Winstone! And well done, the Emmys!
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