Over the past few years, I’ve grown to love Guy Ritchie. I think he’s a lot cooler than people give him credit for, and I think he really loved Madonna in his own way. I also tend to think he’s probably a really great dad to Rocco and David Banda, and a great step-dad to Lourdes. As far as my Guy Ritchie affection goes, it also helps that I adored RocknRolla, his hilarious crime film starring my beloved Gerard Butler (and an epically gorgeous Idris Elba and my latest crush Tom Hardy). Any director willing to bring those actors together for any kind of film is going to win my respect – but the fact that RocknRolla was actually a really good movie certainly raised my opinion of Guy.

So Guy is gearing up to promote the Christmas release of Sherlock Holmes. He sat down for an extensive interview with Esquire (full interview here). Guy spends most of the time just shooting the sh-t, talking about his workouts and his bar, that kind of stuff. But then he starts talking about Madonna, and it’s pretty interesting:

“She’s a manifester, if there ever was one,” [Guy Ritchie] says. “First-rate manifester. Madonna makes things happen. Put Madonna up against any twenty-three-year-old, she’ll outwork them, outdance them, outperform them. The woman is broad.”

“Broad,” I say, repeating the word of the day.

“And, of course, here you go: I still love her,” he says. He takes a breath, drives through a red light. If no one is ahead of him, Guy Ritchie does not typically stop. “But she’s retarded, too.”

It’s rocky getting a divorce, innit? I say.

“You can’t tell someone when they’re getting divorced that their pain is an illusion,” he says. “I’m f-cking telling you, I feel it, I’ve been through that. You have, too. No one can say you don’t feel that. That’s the illusion of the illusion. The biggest fundamental is, you need a little ignorance.”

[From Esquire]

I like that. Madonna is “retarded” but he still loves her and respects her a great deal. I get that a lot of people will be upset with Guy’s use of the word “retarded” but I think this is one of those times where context is key. Is he really mocking the mentally challenged? Not really. He’s trying to talk about how complicated his relationship with Madonna was. Of course, he should have used a better word. Like “crazy” or “gristle”. I also like that the divorce seemed to hit Guy harder than Madonna – or maybe he’s just a better actor. Which wouldn’t be hard, because Madge is incapable of delivering one line on cue.

Regarding Sherlock Holmes, Guy also pontificated on the famous detective’s street cred, saying “Holmes was a gentleman, but he was also a street guy who could scruff it up a bit. I thought the story had lost that part of its essence.” I’m actually looking forward to seeing Sherlock Holmes – I think it will probably be pretty good, and likely closer to the original Sir Conan Doyle stories than people imagine.

Guy Ritchie is shown at the premiere of The Firm on 9/10/09. It was his 41st birthday and photographers presented him with a little cake. Credit: WENN.com and Fame Pictures