Ray Winstone has questioned how “people meet each other any more”, as he suggested that many are “terrified to open their mouths”.
The British actor famed for his “hard man” roles in films such as Scum, Sexy Beast, The Departed and The Sweeney, said he had to be “really careful” himself as people could take offence to his own manner of speaking.
“I just wonder how people meet each other any more,” he told the Sunday Times in a new interview. “How a man meets a woman, or a geezer a geezer, whatever. Because everybody’s terrified to open their mouths.”
He continued: “I’ve got a terrible habit, because I’m bad with names, and call people ‘darling’ and ‘babe’, and I have to be really careful because people take offence.”
Society is currently in the throes of what some experts have dubbed an “intimacy crisis”, with a recent report showing that young Americans are increasingly not entering into romantic relationships.
One study showed that the number of Gen Zers – those born between 1997 and 2012 – reporting that they had been a relationship at any point as a teen was 20 per cent lower than Gen Xers and 22 per cent lower than Baby Boomers.
Meanwhile, a 2025 study from the American Institute for Boys and Men found that more than 40 per cent of Gen Z men reported having no relationship experience as teens. A YouGov poll that same year heard that 60 per cent of single respondents said they “rarely” or “never” go on dates.
Some of the blame for this has been pinned on technology, with dating apps and technology funnelling people into echo chambers, fuelling cynicism around dating and having a negative impact on real-life interpersonal skills.
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Winstone has three daughters – Lois, 44, Jaime, 41 and Ellie Rae, 25 – with his wife, Elaine, whom he married in 1979.
He joked that they don’t try and tell him what he should or shouldn’t say as “there is no help for me. But I’m pretty alright.”
In the same interview, he said that his role in Netflix’s series The Gentlemen had made him realise that he’s “getting old… when you’re not the young lead but the old boy, who everyone says they’ve got to look after because he’s getting on a bit”.
The Gentlemen made additional headlines last week after it was reported that Meghan Markle was “in talks” for a role in the third season of the show, which is directed by Guy Ritchie.
Just days later, it was claimed that the role offer had been “withdrawn” due to the “intense backlash”.