Guy Ritchie: Cocksure and ­Headstrong

Don’t be fooled by his pleasant exterior. At first glance, he looks like the guy next door, someone you’d like to have a beer or two with down at the pub. With Guy Ritchie, that’s certainly a possibility – though you should know that the fifty-four-year-old can’t sit still for a second, has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and owns not only a pub called The Lore of the Land but also a brewery, the Gritchie Brewing Company. Not to mention the fact that he has just delivered his thirteenth film, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. The Covenant with Jake Gyllenhaal is also opening soon, and he is currently directing the first two episodes for the series The Gentlemen, a television spin-off of his 2019 hit film of the same name. Also in the works are two live-action musicals for Disney, Aladdin 2 and Hercules. Speaking of his workaholism, Ritchie himself once said: “The idea is to be quite busy for the next few years. It’s funny, the older you get, the more you like filmmaking.” This guy really has got a lot of energy!

That becomes obvious when you watch his films. His first work, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, was released in 1998, followed two years later by Snatch. The two over-the-top small-time gangster comedies not only made Guy Ritchie famous, they also launched Jason Statham’s career – but more on that later. Rapid-fire, Ritchie delivered narratively complex stories featuring shady underworld characters with colorful gangster names and failed existences swapping offensive jokes. But the really special thing about the films was the smart camerawork, with slow motion, time lapse and unusual angles. The entertaining dialogue was cleverly orchestrated, and the fight scenes brilliantly choreographed. This had never been seen before. It’s fitting that Ritchie once said he didn’t want to make conventional movies. Add to that the fact that you were bent over laughing because you couldn’t understand a word Brad Pitt was saying as Mickey “One Punch” O’Neil in Snatch. Pitt had already proven he had a comedic streak in 12 Monkeys, but that he was crazy enough to basically parody his role in Fight Club was something we didn’t expect him to do. It was Pitt, by the way, who really wanted to be in Ritchie’s second film. The mumbled enunciation was a solution to disguise the actor’s American accent. Anyway, everyone obviously had a lot of fun during the shoot – and it was contagious.

It should be mentioned here, as an aside, that Guy Ritchie was married to Madonna at the time Snatch was released, which appeared to interest the press much more than the film’s premiere. The two divorced in 2008, which means we can put that matter to rest. Perhaps just one more quote from Guy Ritchie on that chapter in his life: “I can understand that the whole world is interested in my wife Madonna. That’s even why I married her.” In 2015 Ritchie married English model and actress Jacqui Ainsley, with whom he has three children.

Another thing that seems important to mention is that Guy Ritchie never attended film school. In fact, when he was fifteen, he was kicked out of the tenth or eleventh school his parents had sent him to for cutting class and “entertaining a girl” in his room. Much more serious, however, was the fact that he suffered from dyslexia. A fate he shares with Quentin Tarantino, by the way, who Ritchie was repeatedly compared to in his early days. In any case, it is astonishing that. . .

→ Read the whole story in rampstyle #28 »Into the Great Wide Open«.