Byline: Tim Oglethorpe

CONSIDER who Ray Winstone replaced in the gritty thriller EDGE OF DARKNESS and you realise how high a movie profile the Cockney actor currently enjoys.

It was Robert De Niro, arguably the most highly-rated and critically acclaimed star in Tinseltown, who felt he could no longer continue in the part of CIA agent Darius Jedburgh.

"Although don't go comparing me to De Niro," insists 53-year-old Ray. "He's the guv'nor, the boss, Fake Breguet Watches and I ain't."

Nonetheless, it's still quite something to step into the shoes of a Hollywood great and it shows how far Ray has come over the past decade.

Fake Montega Watches

"It ain't gone half badly," is Ray's understated comment.

As well as a starring role alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull and, ironically, that man De Niro in The Departed, Ray recently played Ian Dury's dad in the acclaimed Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and was the star of the sublime Sexy Beast.

Edge Of Darkness is a remake of a BBC drama from the '80s starring the late Bob Peck. Mel Gibson puts drunken rants and marital break-ups behind him to chalk up his first movie role for six years as murder detective Thomas Craven.

Ray is honest about those with whom he works - he's still smarting over the failure to get Sweeney: The Movie off the ground because of the failings of one individual - but describes Mel as
embroidered patches "a diamond geezer and a great actor and a pleasure to work with".

That said, filming on Edge Of Darkness in America was no walk in the park.

"Put it this way, I can understand why De Niro left the project - it wasn't easy to get it right.

"The first scene we had to do again and again. It just wasn't working. It was a very hard scene. But that happens in films sometimes."

CAPTION(S):

* GUN LAW: Ray Winstone replaced Robert De Niro as CIA agent Darius Jedburgh

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