Ray Winstone is BUNNY MONRO?

By Matt Holmes / June 30, 2011

When I read Nick Cave's fabulous novel The Death of Bunny Monro earlier this year, I actually, for a reason I can't entirely explain - envisaged Gary Oldman as the lead. The thought of Oldman playing a debauched, middle aged womanizer (underage girls, and those passed their prime) whose sudden suicide of his wife and pathetic job of selling cosmetics on the road in Brighton, leads him to hit rock bottom, reminded me of his turns in True Romance and in Sid & Nancy. Further fueling this obsession in me that the role should be his, is that the core of Bunny Monroe is a true bonding of a father and a young 9 year old son, a real heart in them connecting and it's that depth that requires a certain kind of performance that few could play.

In the end, it looks like it might have fallen to Ray Winstone, and I suppose, I'm happy with that choice - just it's going to take a little adjustment to remove Oldman from my conscious.

Speaking at the Dundee Literary Festival on Friday (the first, and last time we are likely to find breaking news from there) - author/screenwriter, musician Nick Cave claimed that the actor loved the story when he originally wrote it as a movie, which was then rejected and turned into a novel, and is now ironically being turned into a British Mini-Series with Cave previously challenging 'BBC or Channel 4, and say to British television, look at HBO. I mean what the hell are you doing?'. Winstone's interest, is said to still be holding;

"Winstone is dying to do it... He really loved the script when we first handed it to him. He was really excited about it, and really distressed when it kinda tanked and never got made."

It appears that Cave approached Winstone soon after he spoke his lines on revenge western The Proposition, incidentally also directed by John Hillcoat (The Road) who is spearheading this mini-series...

"Ray let himself go for that particular part... He was drinking and kind of out of shape and looking pretty rough, but he had this kind of magnetism about him where all the women involved were weak at the knees when Ray was around. And when he speaks everyone cranes towards him: he has this kind of pull which is really extraordinary. It€™s something to do with his ability to be really funny, and the kind of vulnerability he has going on."

If you haven't yet picked up a copy of The Death of Bunny Monro, I highly recommend the novel as a terrific and disturbing yarn that only Cave could put together. source - empire