HOW WE MET: RAY WINSTONE AND IAN RICKSON

Ray Winstone, 40, was a boxer before he became an actor; he won 80 out of 88 fights, twice for England. Expelled from stage school, he later met the film director Alan Clarke and appeared in 'Scum' and 'Quadrophenia'. His roles in 'The Bill' and 'Nil By Mouth' have made him the tough guy of British acting. He is married with two teenage daughters. Ian Rickson, 34, is artistic director of the Royal Court, has also directed at the National, and will lead the Court back to its renovated Sloane Square home next year. He is married to the theatre director Polly Teale

RAY WINSTONE: I came to see Ian for something called Some Voices. I haven't got a clue when that was. I don't even know what day it is now. He reminds me very much of Gary Oldman - although they've got very different styles, there's a feminine side to them both. When you work with male directors, they're often looking for the macho side, and they don't know the other side of a man, the weaknesses. We can all be macho, larger than life. But Ian's feminine side is quite inspirational, it makes him more of a man. Some directors don't know those other sides; that's OK, but Ian does.

The first time I came in to rehearse it was one of those "all sit on the floor" kind of things: "This is a map of England, and I want you to sit where you come from." Before I'd have said "This is bollocks," but you've either got to surrender yourself to it, get on with it, and be a luvvie if you like for a minute, or don't be there, go and do something else.

We were standing around in a circle, falling backwards - you know that game, trusting the people on stage with you? - and I thought, "This is not what it's about." But there's something about it that works. One night on stage we had a power cut, and we just carried on as if a light-bulb had gone out as part of the play. If a daft game works for you, you do it.

I learnt with Ian, with female directors and certainly with Gary Oldman, that there is another side, that weaker side. Strength is easy to do. To show a man at his most vulnerable, that's more interesting. Ian brought that out of me when I done Some Voices, and we explored it more with Pale Horse. That was great for me, like going back to school. By the time I came to work with Ian, and Gary and Tim [Roth], you know, that's what I was looking for. They were people to learn something from.

Ian's a Charlton man and I'm West Ham, but I have a soft spot for Charlton. There are connections between us, like Alan Curbishley, the Charlton manager, who used to be at West Ham, so I hope Charlton do well this year. We go to dos, to pubs. People you drink with, you learn something from. We're total opposites, but I think that's good. I can imagine us being friends for life, and nothing to do with this business.

When you like people that's when you argue. I mean, there are things about Ian which truly bug me. Like when he directs women. He's quite forceful with women where he's not with guys. He actually loves women, he's a ladies' man, but I do wind him up about not being able to direct women, and that pisses him off quite a bit.

I like the small space of the Royal Court. I find it like cinema acting which is so close. You can experiment - people would be all along the walls, and I'd use the phone call in the play to pick out someone in the audience, and talk to them. Ian would go, "You can't do that, you're breaking the spell of what theatre is." And I'd say, "You're bringing them into the play." When he wasn't in the auditorium, I would still do it sometimes.

Two guys in the audience used to come in quite a bit and sit by this bed which was on-stage, and I would like lie backwards and lay my hand right in the guys' lap. You could feel the whole audience suddenly connect. And Ian used to make me promise not to do it. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. But that's just experimenting, you know. I love it in the cinema when someone looks right down the camera at you.

IAN RICKSON: I would have met Ray for rehearsals for Some Voices in 1994. I actually didn't audition him, he did a reading of the play for the playwright - more for script than casting purposes - and made the part his. I came in and he was sitting there in a burgundy leather jacket looking like Terry Venables, and I thought, "What is this going to be like?" But as soon as you get into a dialogue with him, you realise how charming and open he is. Normally when you spend time with people who are famous, they're surrounded by a retinue and can't be curious and ask questions. What's lovely about Ray is that you'll see him with the taxi driver, the person doing wigs or the director, and he's as engaged and generous with his time with all of them. That's what will keep him a fresh actor.

The kind of actor Ray is isn't coming out of drama schools. He's been a boxer, he's worked on markets, he has a background. So immediately he comes on stage he's bringing that interesting world with him. He's incredibly rich emotionally. It's the contrasts that make him so special. The contrast in him between being very manly and being tender and passionate is electric. You would have seen that in Nil By Mouth: this brute who's also very vulnerable.

We go to football together. I support Charlton, he supports West Ham. The two teams are kind of friendly, and there's always a mutual cheer for the other when the results come over the Tannoy. I suppose we'd see each other more if we weren't so busy - we meet every month or two. I met him in Ireland recently only because we were both working there. He sweats a lot when he's drunk, and I've had arguments with him about being so macho. I like to think I've been challenging some of his more macho traits.

The fear when you meet a male actor who's been successful in television for a long time is that they're not going to be open to the kind of working process you need for a new play; that they're going to be a bit suspicious because they don't want to look silly, that they're going to be guarded.

Particularly with Ray, having seen him in things like Scum, you also fear him being a tough guy who isn't going to enjoy the sensitivity of the theatre process. So it was a revelation to me how willing he was to play in rehearsals, what a seeking person he was. He's really interested in learning, developing, asking questions. He's a man of great curiosity, which is such an important quality in an actor.

What I'm interested in doing is casting actors slightly off type, so that the Ray who was in Scum, and playing baddies in The Bill, I cast as someone much gentler who was a cook. That was really interesting, getting that out of him. He said to me afterwards that he based the performance on my effeminate hand movements. I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. But I was touched that he could access a part of himself that was tender.

An exciting thing we've done at the Court is to team up a writer with an actor, the way Shakespeare did, and Chekhov too. Joe Penhall, the writer of Some Voices, was so entranced by Ray that he wrote his next play, Pale Horse, for Ray to perform.

There are enough affinities between us to make the friendship sustaining, I think. Professionally I see him as a real Royal Court actor, because he can be detailed, incredibly real, yet tragic, epic. That suits the kind of work we do. We're not particularly interested in plays with wigs or plays set in drawing rooms, we want to put real life on stage in all its complexity, and we look for actors who can do that.

I'm always interested in actors who don't look like actors. He's not luvvie-like. He has that need to know, to find out. And because he's a good listener, conversations are quite equal. He's a very powerful personality, so you have to be very persuasive and imaginative in your directing or conversation to get him to go with you. But because he's trusting and open, that power thing is largely irrelevant; it's creative. You do sometimes feel as a director that you can't see actors socially, because there's still that power issue around. I never have to think about that with him.

There was a big surprise birthday thing for him recently, for his 40th. All his friends were in his favourite restaurant in Enfield, and he thought he was just going there for a quiet bite to eat with his wife. He turned up looking fairly haggard, in sweatpants, and quite scruffy. Seeing him that evening, I found myself thinking yes, you really can judge someone by the quality of their friends. He had people who were quite well known, and others who were not in the arts at all. It made me realise he must have a real knack of engaging with a whole range of people. He has empathy, which is what all great actors need.

Ian Rickson's production of 'The Weir' by Conor McPherson opens at the Ambas-sadors Theatre, W1 (0171 565 5000), 8 Oct