Early life

Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent, to Anne (née Skinner) and David Waters, both English teachers. One of his grandmothers was Irish. Both his grandfathers were POWs of the Japanese during World War II. 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. 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, 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. 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 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." 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 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. 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. He will appear alongside Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Harry Styles.

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. 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. 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.

Rylance has been a supporter of the indigenous rights organisation Survival International for many years. 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. 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."

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."

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	The McGuffin	Gavin
1987	Hearts of Fire	Fizz
1991	The Grass Arena	John Healy
1991	Prospero's Books	Ferdinand
1995	Institute Benjamenta	Jakob von Gunten
1995	Angels & Insects	William Adamson
2000	William Shakespeare	Artistic Director	Shakespeare's Globe
2001	Intimacy	Jay
2008	The Other Boleyn Girl	Thomas Boleyn
2011	Blitz	Bruce Roberts
2011	Anonymous	Henry Condell
2013	Days and Nights	Stephen
2015	The Gunman	Cox
2015	Bridge of Spies	Rudolf Abel	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor AACTA International Award for Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role London Film Critics' Circle Award for Supporting Actor of the Year New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated—Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor
2016	The BFG	The BFG	Post-production
2017	Dunkirk		Filming

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	3 episodes
2003	Richard II	Richard II	Television film
2005	The Government Inspector	David Kelly	Television film British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
2014-present	Bing	Flop (voice)	78 episodes
2015	Wolf Hall	Thomas Cromwell	6 episodes British Academy Television Award for Best Actor Nominated—Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Movie/Miniseries Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film

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

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

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Mark Rylance

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.

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.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]