# Alex Winter reflects on early work with controversial director Michael Winner

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/alex-winter-michael-winner-was-the-most-erudite-sociopath-ive-ever-met/
- Published: 2026-09-10T14:00:37+00:00
- Updated: 2026-09-10T14:27:41+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/10/alex-winter-michael-winner-was-the-most-erudite-sociopath-ive-ever-met
- Topics: Culture, UK, World

## Key points

- Alex Winter answers reader questions about his acting and directing career.
- Called Death Wish 3 director Michael Winner "the most erudite sociopath".
- Says AI's rapid, profit-driven growth is his biggest current internet worry.

## Summary

Actor and director Alex Winter, best known for playing Bill S Preston in the Bill & Ted films, took part in a Guardian reader Q&A covering his career, from The Lost Boys to directing documentaries on Napster, blockchain and Frank Zappa. The piece offers a personal, wide-ranging look at his life and work, touching on his London roots, his creative partnership with Keanu Reeves, and his early experiences on set with the controversial director Michael Winner.

Winter discussed enjoying playing vampires and mutants, his enduring musical and theatrical bond with Reeves (with whom he once discussed tackling Shakespeare), and directing the live-action Ben 10 films, on which he met his wife. He also recalled working with Michael Winner on his first film, Death Wish 3, aged 19, describing the director as "the most erudite sociopath" he had met, and reminisced about drinking in Brixton during the shoot. On his documentary work, he named the rushed, profit-driven expansion of AI, and the associated rise of "tech oligarchs", as the aspect of the modern internet that concerns him most.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.