Winstone was asked to appear in
Mr Thomas, a play written by his friend and fellow Londoner
Kathy Burke. The reviews were good, and led to Winstone being cast, alongside Burke, in
Gary Oldman's drama
Nil By Mouth (1997). He was widely lauded for his performance as an alcoholic
wife-batterer, receiving a
BAFTA nomination (17 years after his Best Newcomer award for
That Summer). He continued to play "tough guy" roles in
Face and
The War Zone – the latter especially controversial, as he played a man who rapes his own daughter – but that obvious toughness also allowed him to play loved-up nice-guys in romantic comedies
Fanny and Elvis and ''
There's Only One Jimmy Grimble. In Last Christmas
, he played a dead man, now a trainee angel, who returns from heaven to help his young son cope with his bereavement which was written by Tony Grounds. In 1995, he played the sinister and mysterious Thane in the comedy drama series The Ghostbusters of East Finchley. The series was also written by Grounds, with whom Winstone worked again on Births, Marriages & Deaths
and Our Boy
, the latter winning him the Royal Television Society Best Actor Award. They worked together again in 2006 on All in the Game'' where Winstone portrayed a football manager. He did a series of
Holsten Pils advertisements where he played upon the phrase "Who's the Daddy", coined in the film
Scum. In 2000, Winstone starred alongside
Jude Law in
Love, Honour and Obey. He then played lead role in
Sexy Beast (2001), which earned him great acclaim from UK and international audiences and brought him to the attention of the American film industry. Winstone plays "Gal" Dove, a retired and happily married former thief dragged back into London's underworld by a
psychopathic former associate (
Ben Kingsley, who received an
Oscar nomination for his performance). In 2000, he starred in
To the Green Fields Beyond at the
Donmar Warehouse and directed by
Sam Mendes. In 2002, he performed at the
Royal Court as Griffin in
The Night Heron. Two years later, he joined
Kevin Spacey for
24 Hour Plays at the
Old Vic, a series of productions that were written, rehearsed, and performed in a single day. After a brief role alongside Burke again in the
tragi-comic The Martins (2001), he appeared in
Last Orders (2001), where he starred alongside
Michael Caine,
Helen Mirren,
David Hemmings, and
Tom Courtenay. Next, Winstone got a prime part in ''
Ripley's Game (2002), the semisequel to The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which he once again played a gangster. He followed up with Lenny Blue
, the sequel to Tough Love
, and the short "The Bouncer". Now internationally known, Winstone was next chosen by Anthony Minghella to play Teague, a sinister Home Guard boss in the American Civil War drama Cold Mountain'' (2003). According to actor
Dominic West, Ray Winstone was the original choice to play the role of "Jimmy McNulty" in the HBO series
The Wire (2002). West stated Winstone turned down the role because he did not want to live in Baltimore, Maryland, and the role subsequently went to West. == 2004–2012 ==