Ray Winstone played villainous Red Room overseer, Dreykov, in 2021's Black Widow. While he was far from the MCU's most memorable baddie, the actor had some decent material to sink his teeth into and appeared in some hard-hitting scenes alongside Scarlett Johansson.
However, it seems that those paled in comparison to whatever he filmed before studio-mandated reshoots. The actor has previously described that experience as "soul-destroying," and elaborated on his issues with Black Widow while appearing at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
"It’s all about selling tickets," Winstone started, sharing his assessment of the current state of Hollywood. "We see what’s happening in Hollywood with Marvel and all that kind of stuff. There is room for it, and it’s fun, but it takes away from getting cultural films made, which are best for the actors, [and] are really good acting parts."
"It’s getting more and more difficult to do that," he continued. "If you’re not on social media now, they might not even consider you for a movie because they want a fanbase to come with that."
Elaborating on his Marvel Studios experience, Winstone said, "I worked with this amazing director, Cate Shortland, and we worked on what my character was going to be. He was like a pedophile running around all these girls, and they’d become Black Widows. We used to get applauded on set. It was probably the best thing I’ve done for a really long time."
He added, "Then I come home after finishing the job and get a call saying we need to do some reshoots. I say: how many scenes? [Cate] says 'all of them.' So I said she should recast [the role], but I was contracted, so I had to do it. I go back, they do my hair all nice, put me in the suit, and I couldn’t do it. I’d already done it."
"I thought, 'I’m not doing it now. I’ve done it. That’s how it’s going to be,'" Winstone admitted. "That’s rejection, you know? There’s nothing worse than doing something, leaving it on the floor, and then being told it’s not right."
It's not hard to see why that was a demoralising experience for the actor, and Black Widow ended up being something of a mixed bag. It's Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 79%, but a pandemic release meant it made only $379.8 million at the worldwide box office.
How high it would have gone in normal times is hard to say, though $1 billion blockbusters came easily for Marvel Studios at the time. Black Widow was also released on Disney+'s short-lived Premier Access service, and the revenue earned from that led Johansson to sue the House of Mouse for what she missed out on from box office revenue.
Winstone's Dreykov was killed off in Black Widow, while his character's daughter, Taskmaster, took a bullet to the head after just a couple of scenes in the past May's Thunderbolts*.