Ray Winstone Reveals Friction With Jack Nicholson On The Departed

It appears that Ray Winstone’s rough diamond charm failed to work its magic on Jack Nicholson when the pair starred together in Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’.

Winstone played Arnold ‘Frenchy’ French, the right hand man to Nicholson’s crime boss Frank Costello in the remake of Hong Kong crime thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’.

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Speaking at a Bafta Life In Pictures event being held in his honour, he said: “Me and Jack did not seem to get on too well. Maybe he was going through a funny time.

“Everyone else loves him to death - I just wanted him to be a great guy.

“We just did not click.”

He added that he had to manoeuvre Scorsese into giving him the role of Frenchy in the Oscar-winning picture, released in 2006.

“I went to see Marty in the Dorchester Hotel,” he said.

“It was Sunday morning, so I thought I could go in, quickly see Marty and be home for Sunday dinner. But we had a chat for about 45 minutes, and I was starving.

“It was a great chat, he can talk about anything. He’s a really knowledgeable, lovely man.

“I told Marty I wanted to play Mr French, and he said, ‘But he doesn’t say anything.’ And I said, ‘But he will.’ And he says, ‘Yeah!’

“So he wrote out this character and just let me make it up, and that’s how French came about. And I didn’t want to play a cop anyway, I wanted to play the bad guy.”

The film ended up winning a swathe of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

Mark Wahlberg was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

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Image credits: Warner Bros