Mark Rylance

Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards.

He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, between 1995 and 2005. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he made his professional debut at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in 1980. He appeared in the West End productions of ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in 1994 and ''Jerusalem'' in 2010, winning the Olivier Award for Best Actor for both. He has also appeared on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards: two for Best Actor for '' Boeing Boeing'' in 2008 and ''Jerusalem'' in 2011, and one for Best Featured Actor for ''Twelfth Night'' in 2014. He received Best Actor nominations for ''Richard III'' in 2014 and '' Farinelli and the King'' in 2017.

Rylance's film appearances include ''Prospero's Books'' (1991), ''Angels and Insects'' (1995), ''Institute Benjamenta'' (1996), ''Intimacy'' (2001) and ''The Other Boleyn Girl'' (2008). He attracted attention for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg's '' Bridge of Spies'' (2015), for which he won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently collaborated with Spielberg in the title role of ''The BFG'' (2016), a live-action film adaptation of the children's book by Roald Dahl; and as James Halliday in ''Ready Player One'' (2018), based on the novel of the same name. He also appeared in Christopher Nolan's World War II drama ''Dunkirk's Vietnam War court drama '' The Trial of the Chicago 7'' (2020) and Adam McKay's apocalyptic comedy '' Don't Look Up'' (2021); all three films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

On television, Rylance won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for his role as David Kelly in the 2005 Channel 4 drama ''The Government Inspector'' and for playing Thomas Cromwell in the 2015 BBC Two mini-series ''Wolf Hall'' he also received Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations.

Rylance is a patron of the London International Festival of Theatre; of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports peace-builders in areas of conflict; and of the British Stop the War Coalition. In 2016, he was included in the ''Time'' 100 list of the world's most influential people.

Early life

Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent to Anne (''née'' Skinner) and David Waters, both teachers of English. One of his grandmothers was Irish. Both his grandfathers were British POWs of the Japanese. His maternal grandfather, Osmond Skinner, spent decades as a banker with the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank. After being shot in the stomach during the Battle of Hong Kong, Skinner was recuperating when he witnessed the St. Stephen's College massacre. He then spent four years in a POW camp. He was able to survive thanks to HSBC contacts who brought him food.

Rylance's parents moved to the US in 1962, first to Connecticut, and then to Wisconsin in 1969, where his father and mother taught English at the University School of Milwaukee, which Rylance attended. He returned to England in 1978.

Rylance has a sister named Susannah, an opera singer and author, and a deceased brother, Jonathan, who was a sommelier at Chez Panisse.

Career

1980s

Rylance took the stage name of Mark Rylance because his given name, Mark Waters, was already taken by someone else registered with Equity. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London from 1978 to 1980 under Hugh Cruttwell; and with Barbara and Peter Bridgmont at the Chrysalis Theatre School in Balham, London. In 1980, he gained his first professional work at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre. In 1982 and 1983, he performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford-upon-Avon and London.

In 1988, Rylance played Hamlet with the RSC in Ron Daniels' production that toured Ireland and Britain for a year. The play then ran in Stratford-upon-Avon. ''Hamlet'' toured the US for two years. In 1990, Rylance and Claire van Kampen (later his wife) founded "Phoebus' Cart", their own theatre company. The following year, the company staged '' The Tempest'' on the road.

1990s

In 1995, Rylance became the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a post he held until 2005. Rylance directed and acted in every season, in works by Shakespeare and others, including an all-male production of ''Twelfth Night'', in which he played Olivia, and ''Richard III'' in the title role. Under his directorate, new plays were also performed at the Globe, the first being ''Augustine's Oak'' (referring to Augustine of Canterbury and Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England) by Peter Oswald, the writer-in-residence, which was performed in 1999. A second play by Oswald followed in 2002: ''The Golden Ass or the Curious Man''.

Rylance played the lead in Gillies MacKinnon's film ''The Grass Arena'' (1991), and won the ''Radio Times'' Award for Best Newcomer. In 1993, he starred in Matthew Warchus' production of ''Much Ado About Nothing'' at the Queen's Theatre, produced by Thelma Holt. His Benedick won him an Olivier Award for Best Actor.

2000s

For his role as Jay in ''Intimacy'' (2001), directed by Patrice Chéreau, he received real, rather than simulated, fellatio. He took the leading role as British weapons expert David Kelly in Peter Kosminsky's ''The Government Inspector'' (2005), an award-winning Channel 4 production for which he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 2005.

In 2005, Oswald's third play written for the Globe was first performed: ''The Storm'', an adaptation of Plautus comedy ''Rudens'' (''The Rope'') – "argu bly one of the sources of Shakespeare's '' The Tempest''. Other historical first nights were organised by Rylance while director of the Globe including ''Twelfth Night'' performed in 2002 at Middle Temple, to commemorate its first performance there exactly 400 years before, and ''Measure for Measure'' at Hampton Court in summer 2004. In 2007, he received a Sam Wanamaker Award together with his wife Claire van Kampen, Director of Music, and Jenny Tiramani, Director of Costume Design, for the founding work during the opening ten years at Shakespeare's Globe.

In 2007, Rylance wrote (co-conceived by John Dove) and starred in ''The BIG Secret Live 'I am Shakespeare' Webcam Daytime Chatroom Show (A comedy of Shakespearean identity crisis)'', which toured England in 2007. On 8 September 2007 Derek Jacobi and Rylance unveiled a Declaration of Reasonable Doubt on the authorship of William Shakespeare's work, after the final matinée performance of ''The Big Secret Live "I am Shakespeare" Webcam Daytime Chat-Room Show'' in Chichester. The actual author of Shakespeare's plays is variously proposed to be Christopher Marlowe; Francis Bacon; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; or Mary Sidney (Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke). The declaration named 20 prominent doubters of the past, including Mark Twain, John Gielgud, Charlie Chaplin and actor Leslie Howard (later withdrawn from the list), and was made by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition duly signed online by 300 people to begin new research. Jacobi and Rylance presented a copy of the document to William Leahy, head of English at Brunel University London.

In 2016, writer Ben Elton delivered a riposte to this "batty" premise in the episode "If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed" of his television comedy ''Upstart Crow''. The great but "self-regarding and pretentious" actor Wolf Hall (played by Ben Miller) joins Burbage's acting company to play Shylock. The character Wolf Hall confronts Shakespeare (played by David Mitchell) with the suggestion that he didn't write his own plays; it is a satirical portrait of Rylance and his opinion.

In 2007, Rylance performed in '' Boeing-Boeing'' in London. In 2008, he reprised the role on Broadway and won Drama Desk and Tony Awards for his performance. In 2009, Rylance won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award Best Actor, 2009 for his role of Johnny Byron in ''Jerusalem'' written by Jez Butterworth at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

2010s

In 2010, Rylance starred in a revival of David Hirson's verse play '' La Bête''. The play ran first at London's Comedy Theatre before transferring to the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, on 23 September 2010. Also in 2010, he won another Olivier award for best actor in the role of Johnny Byron in ''Jerusalem'' at the Apollo Theatre in London. In 2011, he won his second Tony Award for playing the same role in the Broadway production.

In 2013, Shakespeare's Globe brought two all-male productions to Broadway, starring Rylance as Olivia in ''Twelfth Night'' and in the title role in ''Richard III'', for a limited run in repertory. He won his third Tony Award for his performance as Olivia and was nominated for his performance as Richard III.

He played Thomas Cromwell in ''Wolf Hall'' (2015), BBC Two's adaptation of Hilary Mantel's historical novels ''Wolf Hall'' and ''Bring Up the Bodies''. For his performance, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Rylance was featured as the castaway on the BBC radio programme ''Desert Island Discs'' on 15 February 2015.

Rylance co-starred in the biographical drama '' Bridge of Spies'', released in October 2015, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Amy Ryan, and Alan Alda. The film is about the 1960 U-2 Incident and the arrest and conviction of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and the exchange of Abel for U-2 pilot Gary Powers. Rylance, who had previously turned down a role offered by Spielberg in the 1987 film ''Empire of the Sun'', plays Abel and has received unanimous universal acclaim for his performance, with many critics claiming it as the best performance of 2015. The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' quoted, "As the deeply principled Donovan, Hanks deftly balances earnestness and humour. And Rylance's spirited performance is almost certain to yield an Oscar nomination." David Edelstein from ''New York'' cited 'It's Rylance who keeps ''Bridge of Spies'' standing. He gives a teeny, witty, fabulously non-emotive performance, every line musical and slightly ironic – the irony being his forthright refusal to deceive in a world founded on lies." Rylance won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and New York Film Critics Circle Award in the Best Supporting Actor categories, as well as receiving Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, among other wins and nominations.

Rylance played the title role in Spielberg's ''The BFG'', a film adaptation of the children's book by Roald Dahl. Filming took place in 2015, and the film was released in July 2016. In 2016 Rylance co-wrote and starred in the new comedy play ''Nice Fish'' at St. Ann's Warehouse, New York. The production subsequently transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End. Rylance had a major role in Christopher Nolan's 2017 action-thriller ''Dunkirk