Jaime Winstone has described her experience on Strictly Come Dancing as "incredible, and exhilarating, but also so nerve-wracking," adding that she is "here for that chaotic energy." The 41-year-old actor spoke about her fears and anxieties surrounding the BBC dancing competition, despite showing accomplishment on the dance floor.
Winstone told The Standard: "My biggest fear is if I fall down the stairs. Then I've been having a lot of dreams where suddenly I'm dancing with no clothes on or — oh my God — my tooth just has fallen out or something." She explained her approach to managing these feelings: "But I've done a lot of work with anxiety. When you do feel the fear, that is it's a very close feeling to excitement. You know? You've just gotta learn how to rewire that. Ultimately, you've just gotta have fun."
Early Career and Inspirations
A fixture of the London scene since her teenage years, Camden-born Winstone came of age publicly, partly due to her famous father, actor Ray Winstone, but also through her own acting career with breakthrough roles in Bullet Boy and Kidulthood. She learned her craft by shadowing her dad on set in LA, working as a camera assistant and runner on films such as 2008's Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, or 2006's The Departed with Cate Blanchett, who proved to be a massive inspiration.
"I think Cate's one of the most phenomenal actors," says Winstone. "I watched her on set, and I think that instilled a lot of confidence in me at a young age just to watch someone who now is Oscar-winning." A spate of roles followed with more acting greats, including 2010's Made in Dagenham, where she shared the screen with Andrea Riseborough, Geraldine James, Sally Hawkins and the late Bob Hoskins.
"I never knew how to do an improvised scene until I was with these heavyweight actors," she said. "I would happily sit there and just get lost in Sally Hawkins' performance. And I remember at one point Bob saying in one scene: 'Come on you, little one, get to the front' and moments like that in my career just changed my path."
Portraying Dame Barbara Windsor
One of Winstone's best performances was appearing as Dame Barbara Windsor in the 2017 BBC biopic Babs. Her portrayal was described by The Guardian as "delicious…sweet and self-knowing…with a perfect Babs laugh, deep and dirty as a drain." Winstone revealed she had just given birth before that audition, referring to the arrival of her now 10-year-old son Raymond Junior.
"So I taped myself up, I bleached my hair, I wiggled my way into that audition and did the laugh. I actually met her when I was about nine, and I giggled behind her and she said 'Oh, you should play me one day!' and that was that. It stayed with me and I thought, well, this is my chance now." She appeared as Babs again, as a young Peggy Mitchell, in flashback scenes in EastEnders in 2022, and made a return to the same role in 2025.
Soho Nights and Reputation
Spending her late teens and twenties in London as part of the showbiz world meant Winstone indulged in the mid-Noughties nightlife scene, with friends including Kim Jones, Miquita Oliver and Pam Hogg. "I did a lot of stuff with [DJ] Jodie Harsh at that time," she remembers. "Some nights, I would be spraying hairspray and holding up dresses for the queens to go on stage. We had a lot of nights in the Revuebar and Madame Jojos." She was once engaged to Lily Allen's brother Alfie, which led to her being branded as a "party girl", a reputation that stuck with her.
"I've always grafted from a young age. I've always worked, so I've always earned my right to dance," she says. "I think it's really important to commit to certain things that make you really happy. It's very easy for people to drag people down or be like 'she does this' or 'she does that'. But, I'm very proud of who I am in that sense. And I was 21, running around from pub to club, like, isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
Family and Future Projects
Winstone is now in her forties, living in Hertfordshire with her husband, James Suckling, and their son. The last time she went as hard as Strictly on a dance floor was at their 2023 wedding in Sicily, which she jokingly claims to have started the Big Italian Wedding trend, as Charli XCX used the same location for her 2025 wedding, as well as the same wedding planner.
Speaking of her father Ray, who is currently appearing in the second series of The Gentlemen, she says: "He's so good in it, isn't he? He's doing the rounds as well. I've never seen him on so many podcasts – he's so modern!" She says the most important thing he has taught her is "the power of no": "It's so important. As is just believing in your choices. It can be really powerful."
Winstone is writing a semi-autobiographical film about "how a girl navigates a man's world in the 1990s", which she would love to direct. After that, she's set to star in a film about substance abuse called Sessions, and her dream role would be playing Stevie Nicks in her biopic. "There's all these rules that we have in place for women in their forties," she says. "Like, suddenly, 'you can't do that', or 'you can't wear that' or, 'you should be having a baby now'. I'm like: absolutely not! I feel like I'm about to enter my prime time."
