Mark Rylance
| Mark Rylance | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rylance at the Belasco Theatre in October 2013 | |
| Born |
David Mark Rylance Waters 18 January 1960 Ashford, Kent, England |
| Education |
University School of Milwaukee Royal Academy of Dramatic Art |
| Occupation | Actor, theatre director, playwright |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Spouse(s) | Claire van Kampen (m. 1989) |
David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is an English actor, theatre director and playwright. He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, from 1995 to 2005. His film appearances include Prospero's Books (1991), Angels and Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), and Intimacy (2001). Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies (2015). He will play the title role in Steven Spielberg's The BFG (2016), a live-action film adaptation of the children's book by Roald Dahl, and in 2017 will star in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk based on the British evacuation in WWII.
After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Rylance made his professional debut at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1980. He went on to win the Olivier Award for Best Actor for Much Ado About Nothing in 1994 and Jerusalem in 2010, and the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Boeing Boeing in 2008 and Jerusalem in 2011. He won a third Tony Award in 2014 for Twelfth Night. On television, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for his role as David Kelly in the 2005 Channel 4 drama The Government Inspector and was nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and BAFTA TV Award for playing Thomas Cromwell in the 2015 BBC Two miniseries Wolf Hall.
Rylance is a patron of the London International Festival of Theatre. He is also a patron of the London based charity Peace Direct which supports peacebuilders in areas of conflict, and of the British Stop the War Coalition. In 2016 he was named in the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[1]
Early life
Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent, to Anne (née Skinner) and David Waters, both English teachers. One of his grandmothers was Irish.[2] Both his grandfathers were POWs of the Japanese during World War II.[3] Rylance has a sister named Susannah, an opera singer and author, and a brother, Jonathan, who works as a sommelier at Alice Waters' (no relation) restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.[4] His parents moved to the United States in 1962, first to Connecticut and then Wisconsin in 1969, where his father taught English at the University School of Milwaukee. Rylance attended this school. He starred in most of the school's plays with the theatre's director, Dale Gutzman, including the lead in a 1976 production of Hamlet,[5] He played Romeo in the school's production of Romeo and Juliet.
Career
Rylance took the stage name of Mark Rylance because his original choice, Mark Waters, was already taken by someone else registered with Equity. At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London he trained from 1978–80 under Hugh Cruttwell, and with Barbara 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 to the United States 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.
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. 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 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.
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.
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.[6] 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.[7]
Rylance co-starred in the biographical drama Bridge of Spies, released in October 2015, directed by 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 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-Depatch quoted, "As the deeply principled Donovan, Hanks deftly balances earnestness and humor. And Rylance’s spirited performance is almost certain to yield an Oscar nomination."[8] 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."[9] 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 will appear in the title role of Steven Spielberg's The BFG, a film adaptation of the children's book by Roald Dahl. Filming took place in 2015 with release scheduled for the summer of 2016.[10] Rylance is to star in Christopher Nolan's 2017 action-thriller Dunkirk based on the British military evacuation of the French city of Dunkirk in 1940 during World War II.[11] He will appear alongside Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Harry Styles.[12]
Shakespeare's Globe
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 II 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.
In 2005, Oswald's third play written for the Globe was first performed: The Storm, an adaptation of Plautus' comedy Rudens (The Rope) – 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 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.
Shakespeare controversy
On 8 September 2007 Derek Jacobi and Rylance unveiled a Declaration of Reasonable Doubt on the authorship of Shakespeare's work, after the final matinée of I am Shakespeare, a play in Chichester, Sussex.
The actual author was proposed to be Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere or Mary Sidney (Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke). The declaration named 20 prominent doubters of the past, including Mark Twain, Orson Welles, John Gielgud, Charlie Chaplin, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson and actor Leslie Howard, 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.[13] 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.
Personal life
Rylance started dating director, composer and playwright Claire van Kampen in 1987 while working on a production of The Wandering Jew at the National Theatre, and they married in Oxfordshire on 21 December 1989.[14] Through this marriage, he became a stepfather to her two daughters from a previous marriage, actress Juliet Rylance and filmmaker Nataasha van Kampen. Nataasha died in July 2012 at the age of 28, following which Rylance withdrew from his planned participation in the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London and was replaced by Kenneth Branagh.[15][16]
Rylance has been a supporter of the indigenous rights organisation Survival International for many years.[17] He is the creator and director of "We Are One", a fundraiser that took place at the Apollo Theatre in April 2010. The evening was a performance of tribal prose and poetry from some of the world's leading actors and musicians.
Rylance is a patron of the London based charity Peace Direct which supports grassroots peacebuilders in areas of conflict, and of the British Stop the War Coalition.[18] He is a member of the Peace Pledge Union, a network of pacifists in the UK. He performed the life and words of Henri, a man living in war-torn eastern Congo, during a presentation in New York City in 2011. He is also patron of The Outside Edge Theatre Company. It works from the perspective of creating theatre and drama with people affected by substance abuse. It provides theatre interventions in drug and alcohol treatment and general community facilities throughout Britain, as well as producing professional public theatre productions that take place in theatres, studio theatres, and art centres.
Rylance became a patron of LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) in 2013. He said about the festival: "I feel LIFT has done more to influence the growth and adventure of English theatre than any other organisation we have."[19]
Rylance became patron of the London Bubble Speech Bubbles project in 2015. “I found a voice through making theatre and am proud to be the patron of Speech Bubbles, which helps hundreds of children to do the same.”[20]
Filmography
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Wallenberg: A Hero's Story | Nikki Fodor | ||
| 1993 | Love Lies Bleeding | Conn | ||
| 1995 | Loving | Charlie Raunce | ||
| 1995 | Hamlet | Hamlet | ||
| 1997 | Henry V | King Henry V | ||
| 2001 | Changing Stages | Himself | ||
| 2003 | Leonardo | Leonardo da Vinci | ||
| 2003 | Richard II | Richard II | ||
| 2005 | The Government Inspector | David Kelly | won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor | |
| 2014 | Bing | Flop (voice) | ||
| 2015 | Wolf Hall | Thomas Cromwell | nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and BAFTA TV Award |
Theatre
| Year | Period | Theatrical Performance | Theatrical Character | Theatre of Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Desperado Corner | Bazza | Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow | |
| 1982 | The Tempest | Ariel | (Performing with the RSC) | |
| 1989 | Hamlet | Hamlet | ||
| Romeo and Juliet | Romeo | |||
| 1991 | Hamlet | Hamlet | (performing with the American Repertory Theater) | |
| The Seagull | Treplev | |||
| 1993 | Henry V | Henry V | TFANA, New York | |
| Much Ado About Nothing | Benedick | Queens Theatre | ||
| 1994 | As You Like It | Touchstone | TFANA, New York | |
| True West | Lee/Austin | Donmar Warehouse | ||
| 1995 | Macbeth | Macbeth | Greenwich Theatre | |
| 2000 | Live x 3 | Henry | Royal National Theatre | |
| 2007 | Boeing Boeing | Robert | Comedy Theatre | |
| I am Shakespeare | Frank | UK tour | ||
| 2008 | Peer Gynt | Peer Gynt | Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis | |
| Boeing Boeing | Robert | Longacre Theatre, NYC | ||
| 2009 | Jul–Aug | Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth | Johnny Byron | Royal Court Theatre |
| Oct–Dec | Endgame by Samuel Beckett | Hamm | Duchess Theatre | |
| 2010 | Jan–Apr | Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth | Johnny Byron | Apollo Theatre |
| Jun–Aug | La Bete by David Hirson | Valere | Comedy Theatre | |
| Sept–Feb | Music Box Theatre, Broadway | |||
| 2011 | ||||
| Apr–Aug | Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth | Johnny Byron | Music Box Theatre, Broadway | |
| Oct–Jan | Apollo Theatre | |||
| 2012 | Nov–Feb 2013 | alternating in Richard III and Twelfth Night | Richard III / Olivia | Apollo Theatre |
| 2013 | Apr–May |
Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins |
Ron | Guthrie Theater |
| 2013 | Oct–Feb | alternating in Richard III and Twelfth Night | Richard III / Olivia | Belasco Theatre, Broadway |
| 2014 | ||||
| 2015 | Feb–Mar | Farinelli and the King by Claire van Kampen | King Philippe V | Sam Wanamaker Playhouse |
| Sep-Dec | Duke of York's Theatre | |||
| 2016 | Jan-Feb | Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins | Ron | St. Ann's Warehouse[21] |
Shakespeare's Globe
Along with Rylance's stage performances, he has appeared often at the recreated Shakespeare's Globe in Southwark, London on the South Bank of the River Thames.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | The Two Gentlemen of Verona | Proteus | |
| 1997 | A Chaste Maid in Cheapside | Mr. Allwit | |
| 1997 | Henry V | Henry V | |
| 1998 | The Merchant of Venice | Bassanio | |
| 1998 | The Honest Whore | Hippolito | |
| 1999 | Antony and Cleopatra | Cleopatra | |
| 2000 | Hamlet | Hamlet | |
| 2001 | Cymbeline | Cloten | |
| 2002 | The Golden Ass | Lucius | |
| 2002 | Twelfth Night | Olivia | |
| 2003 | Richard II | Richard II | |
| 2004 | Measure for Measure | Duke Vincentio | |
| 2005 | The Tempest | Prospero Stephano Sebastian Alonso |
|
| 2005 | The Storm | Daemones Labrax The Weather |
|
| 2012 | Richard III | Richard III | |
| 2012 | Twelfth Night | Olivia |
Awards and nominations
Rylance has received numerous nominations and awards for his performances, including wins at the Tony Awards and BAFTA Awards. At the 88th Academy Awards, Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies.[22]
Bibliography
- Mark Rylance: Play – A Recollection in Pictures and Words of the First Five Years of Play at Shakespeares's Globe Theatre. Photogr.: Sheila Burnett, Donald Cooper, Richard Kolina, John Tramper. Shakespeare's Globe Publ., London, UK. 2003. ISBN 0-9536480-4-4.
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare Series by Peter Dawkins (Foreword by Mark Rylance):
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare in As You Like It. I.C. Media Productions, 1998. Paperback. ISBN 0-9532890-1-X.
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. I.C. Media Productions, 1998. Paperback. ISBN 0-9532890-0-1.
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. I.C. Media Productions, 1999. Paperback. ISBN 0-9532890-2-8.
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare in The Tempest. I.C. Media Productions, 2000. Paperback. ISBN 0-9532890-3-6.
- The Wisdom of Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. I.C. Media Productions, 2002. Paperback. ISBN 0-9532890-4-4.
- Peter Dawkins. The Shakespeare Enigma (Foreword by Mark Rylance). Polair, UK. 2004. Illustrated paperback, 476pp. ISBN 0-9545389-4-3.
- John Abbott. Improvisation In Rehearsal (Foreword by Mark Rylance). Nick Hern Books, UK. 2009. Paperback, 256pp. ISBN 978-1-85459-523-2.
- Dave Patrick. The View Beyond: Sir Francis Bacon: Alchemy, Science, Mystery (The View Series) (Foreword by Mark Rylance, Ervin Lazslo, Rose Elliot). Deep Books, UK. 2011. Paperback, 288pp. ISBN 978-1-905398-22-5.
References
- ↑ "Mark Rylance by Steven Spielberg: TIME 100". TIME.com. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
- ↑ "Mark Rylance: 'I remember bringing food to trees. Like bowls of milk and other things' ". Irish Times. Retrieved 23 March 2016
- ↑ "Mark Rylance: from Wolf Hall courtier to Steven Spielberg spy". Radio Times. Retrieved 23 March 2016
- ↑ Cooke, Rachel (30 June 2013). "Mark Rylance: You Have To Move Into The Chaos". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
- ↑ "The Milwaukee Journal – Google News Archive Search". google.com.
- ↑ "Wolf Hall". BBC Two. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
- ↑ BBC Desert Island Discs website "Castaway archive", 15 February 2015.
- ↑ Wilson, Calvin. "'Bridge of Spies' Spielberg is at his best".
- ↑ Edelstein, David. "'Bridge of Spies Is a Subtler Kind of Spielberg Movie'".
- ↑ Siegel, Tatiana (27 October 2014). "Three-Time Tony Winner Mark Rylance Nabs Lead in Steven Spielberg's 'The BFG'". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
- ↑ "Mark Rylance to star as Pope in Spielberg film". BBC. 12 April 2016.
- ↑ McNary, Dave (11 March 2016). "Harry Styles, Fionn Whitehead to Star in Christopher Nolan WW2 Action-Thriller ‘Dunkirk’". Variety.
- ↑ Doran, D'Arcy (8 September 2007). "Coalition aims to expose Shakespeare". USA Today. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
- ↑ Schulman, Michael (18 November 2013). "Play On". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
- ↑ Baker, Richard Anthony (1 August 2012). "Nataasha van Kampen". The Stage.
- ↑ Brown, Mark (6 July 2012). "Mark Rylance exits from Olympics opening after step-daughter's death". The Guardian.
- ↑ "We Are One a fundraising evening in aid of Survival International with performance of tribal prose and poetry from leading actors and musicians at Apollo Theatre 18 April". Londontheatre.co.uk. 8 March 2010. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
- ↑ Stop the War Coalition, "Stop the War Patrons, Officers and Steering Committee", 2016.
- ↑ LIFT website "Olivier and Tony Winner Mark Rylance announced as LIFT Patron", 23 May 2013.
- ↑ "Announcing Mark Rylance as the patron of Speech Bubbles". London Bubble. 27 April 2016.
- ↑ "Nice Fish - St Ann's Warehouse". St Ann's Warehouse. Retrieved 2015-11-02.
- ↑ "Actor in a Supporting Role". Oscar.go.com. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
External links
- Mark Rylance at the Internet Movie Database
- Mark Rylance at the Internet Broadway Database
- Official homepage
- Interview on Farinelli (theatre play), Bridge of Spies (film) etc Oct-2015
- Interview with Mark Rylance at the Globe on wisdom, Sir Francis Bacon, Shakespeare Jun-94
- Mark Rylance performing the Peacebuilder, Henri Ladyi, Congo
- doollee.com listing of Rylance's works written for the stage
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