Ballerina star Ian McShane thinks there may be more to his John Wick character than meets the eye, but "the ambiguity keeps it nice"

John Wick star Ian McShane is back as Continental manager Winston Scott in new movie Ballerina. This time around, he's here to help out Eve (Ana de Armas), a newly trained assassin out for revenge against the mysterious group who murdered her father when she was a child.

Eve and John Wick don't just have Winston's allyship in common, either: they both received their training as part of the Ruska Roma family of assassins. But McShane thinks Winston might have something in common with the pair of them, too.

"Is Winston part of the family?" he proposes to GamesRadar+. "Because you last saw Winston over the grave of John Wick, saying in Russian, 'Goodnight, my son.' And then you see a hinge of a tattoo, but you don't know if he's... you don't know. The ambiguity of that keeps it nice."

Winston's backstory was explored in spin-off TV series The Continental, which was released on Peacock and Prime Video in 2023, but McShane has since distanced himself from the show. "I wouldn't watch it," he said in an interview with MovieWeb last year. "It had nothing to do with our movies."

Instead, McShane thinks Ballerina provides a more well-rounded look at his character. "It gives a chance to show another side of Winston, protecting her when she was a kid, when you [see] her backstory and he's been keeping an eye on her," he tells us.

"And when she comes back, seeking revenge, he's there for her. It's like, 'What took you so long to come back?' You know, at the same time saying, 'I wouldn't do this if I was you,' knowing that she'll pay no attention whatsoever and go her route. It's a welcome addition to the [franchise]."

Ballerina arrives in theaters on June 6. For more, get up to speed with the rest of this year's movie release dates with our guide to the best upcoming movies of 2025.