TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW
Big friendly acting giant Mark Rylance on Spielberg, Sorkin and Satan.
I DON’T FEEL I HAVE MORE INTEGRITY THAN OTHER PEOPLE… I’M LUCKY TO NOT HAVE TO DO THINGS JUST TO SURVIVE. THAT’S JUST GOOD FORTUNE, ISN’T IT? Beloved by Spielberg and Nolan, Mark Rylance has been called the greatest stage and screen star of his generation. Now the British chameleon from Bridge Of Spies and Dunkirk is back, with Satan, Sorkin and Johnny Depp on his dance card. Total Film meets the most modest actor around.
Mark Rylance pads into a hotel room in Zurich. Wearing his trademark trilby, the British actor looks markedly different to the last time Total Film saw him. Last year, he was hosting the 20th anniversary concert for Peace One Day at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he was artistic director for a decade before he stepped down in 2005. This annual call for a global ceasefire saw him dressed up as the BFG, large ears and all, singing ‘The Last Ship’ with Sting.
Reprising the Roald Dahl-created giant he played in Steven Spielberg’s 2016 charmer underlines Rylance’s sense of humour about his work. But no doubt, it’s work of the highest quality. He’s become a Spielberg favourite ever since he played Soviet agent Rudolf Abel in Bridge Of Spies, winning him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. “He’s a very gentle soul,” the director noted, before casting him for a third time as the game designer in Ready Player One.
If that wasn’t enough, Christopher Nolan cast him as the unflustered ‘little ships’ captain in his 2017 World War 2 movie Dunkirk, while his Sir Thomas Cromwell in the BBC’s Wolf Hall brought living room recognition (and a BAFTA).
It’s a remarkable run for an actor who, until recently, was more heralded for his stage work – winning two Olivier awards and three Tony awards, including one apiece for his electric turn as the eccentric Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.
Easing his way between the West End and Broadway must’ve felt natural. Born in Ashford, Kent, Rylance grew up partly in America, after his English teacher parents moved to Connecticut and later Wisconsin when he was young. By the late 1970s he returned home with ambitions to act. The stage became his lifeblood – even founding his own theatre company in 1990 with his wife, director-playwright Claire van Kampen – while film was largely kept on the backburner.
It’s only now, as Rylance turns 60, that he’s being fully embraced by movies – and that means leading roles, at long last. In Waiting For The Barbarians, from Embrace Of The Serpent’s Ciro Guerra, Rylance is typically powerful as the liberal official presiding over a desert outpost during colonial rule. No question, his understated approach outshines the more villainous turns from co-stars Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson.
Also arriving in time for awards season is Aaron Sorkin’s ensemble 1960s-set civil rights drama The Trial Of The Chicago 7, in which Rylance plays real-life activistlawyer William Kunstler opposite Eddie Redmayne. Then there’s The Last Planet for Terrence Malick, a story about Christ in which he plays none other than Satan. For the softly spoken, self-described “peacenik”, it’s a delicious prospect.
He was also taking the lead on stage this summer in Doctor Semmelweis – a real medic from 1840s Vienna who discovered the benefits of hand-washing – until, ironically, it was postponed due to coronavirus. Stage work keeps him grounded, it seems. “That’s the only thing that’s really quite difficult about moving from the theatre into films,” he muses. “You get tempted into looking at yourself.” That’s Mark Rylance alright… a real gentle giant.
The last time Total Film saw you in the flesh, you were on stage at the Globe dressed as the BFG and hosting the Peace One Day concert…
It turned out OK, didn’t it? I was very nervous about it. I had to sing with Sting! I know Sting and I’m very good friends with the organisers and eventually they said, ‘The only person that Sting will respond to is you. Would you please ask him if he would come?’ And so I did. And he said he would. But he said, ‘I’ll come if you’ll sing with me.’ So what could I do? I had to sing. I couldn’t say no, when he’d said yes, because I’d asked him. So then I thought, ‘But I’ll sing as the BFG. And if I don’t sing very well, it will be alright. It won’t be me. It’ll be the BFG!’
What got you involved?
When I was artistic director, and people came to me with miraculous ideas, I would encourage the Globe [that] we should support people like that. And this particular idea… this young actor [Jeremy Gilley] I knew did convince all the nations – or he was a spark – that they all got together and agreed that 21 September will be the Day of Peace. And so this was the 20th anniversary of that day. And there are ceasefires all over the world. So the BFG, who’s a pacifist, turned up!
Film-wise, it’s been a busy time for you, starring in Ciro Guerra’s Waiting For
The Barbarians. What did you like about playing the Magistrate?
That I liked about him? It’s a good question. I’ve found it difficult to watch actually, because I didn’t like him much. But actually, when I think about it, I suppose I like his ability eventually to accept the truth.
What were your impressions of working with Johnny Depp?
Very gracious. Very present. He gets shy in press conferences. I can see that he takes a long time to find his words. It’s not like that when you’re working with him. He’s very articulate and eloquent. Very funny. He’s just had a very extraordinary life. He’s a musician primarily too. He’s a wonderful
actor but he began as a musician and fell into acting. So he brought a little guitar to the set. And he’ll play it very beautifully. He plays with Jeff Beck, his friend. So he plays very beautifully, quietly, and then we will get up and act. And so I had the impression that he was playing with me, like in a duet of a piano and violin or bass and drum. He was very responsive. Also, you forget with beautiful, handsome film stars… what a wonderful voice a great film star has. He’s got the most amazing deep, seductive voice. And he was no trouble at all. Unfortunately, I have to confess I went into it with people saying to me, ‘Oh, it’s going to be difficult.’ And that wasn’t the case at all.
ONE PERSON MAKING A DIFFERENCE DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Was that you actually performing the scene where the Magistrate is hanging from a gallows?
It was a stuntman, who did a bit of it. It was frightening because the rope broke the first time we did it and I fell on the ground. Fortunately I fell onto the captain… sorry, I’ve forgotten his name now! The wonderful other actor who’s in it…
Robert Pattinson?
Yeah! He caught me! I got very upset that the rope was broken. And said, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ and all this stuff and everyone was looking down. And then I’d forgotten that I was there dressed as a woman with a little bonnet on! Best to check in the mirror before you stand up to complain!
You’ve also got Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial Of The Chicago 7 on the way, in which you play lawyer and activist William Kunstler. How would you describe it?
It’s about a trial that took place in Chicago, in 1969, I think, when a number of very active peace activists came to Chicago to protest against the Vietnam War, and the administration at that time, the new Nixon administration, had some very hardline men in it, who wanted to put these youth activists – Abbie Hoffman and other very, very, very smart and radical young people – behind bars for 30 years if they could, and kind of miraculously in this trial they are. Well, you’ll see what happens.
Both films are political period pieces. Do you think audiences will find a link to now?
Well… I think one of the biggest lies being told at the moment is that small actions don’t matter, that it won’t make any difference what you do as an individual in terms of climate change or in terms of justice. But actually, the only thing that will make a difference is when we are all as individuals making a difference. So one person making a difference does make a difference. Or corporations, governments, they’re all individuals like us. And occasionally, occasionally, as in the case of Greta Thunberg, one person, one little girl, doing something that must have seemed totally ridiculous to everyone else in her school… and now she’s talking to the UN and now she’s being accused by world leaders of depressing the other young people. That’s an amazing claim!
Is it exciting when directors like Sorkin and Guerra come to you?
That’s very exciting. There’s something
exciting I think also about… having worked for so long, doing established classical plays, so revivals of work from earlier times. And this of course, is always new stories, brand new stories. So the interesting thing of carving a new river – which is a story – and being involved in the creation of new things is exciting.
You partly grew up in America. Did that give you a perspective on cultures over here and there?
It made me an outsider and an insider in both places. I think the cultures are very different. I was there in the winter time, from 1963 to ’78, and in the summer time here. So the majority of the time I was there. I went back and forth, on big old BC10s – chartered ones via Reykjavík and Dublin. Hopped across the ocean, back and forth, in the ’60s and ’70s. I was in England for six or seven weeks [a year]. So England was a very romantic place in my mind, of Kent summers, going to Stonehenge and going to the theatre and all kinds of English culture, as a tourist, and also as a grandson in a village in Sissinghurst in Kent. That was my image; we were very English in America. My mother would have tea parties on the 4th of July, and my father and mother never lost their accents. So I was given both.
What got you into acting? Did you make short movies?
I did with a friend – we made a film of Frankenstein, with a creature in the woods. My friend lived in a house that had an old abattoir attached to a barn at the back, and we used that as the laboratory. We couldn’t edit the film so we had to film the story as it was, on this little reel of film.
IT WAS A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE, THE WAY THE FILM WAS TREATED
Did you think then it was something you could do it for a living?
I didn’t think I could do it for a living at that stage. I was still unsure whether I could do it for a living when I was at RADA. But I was having a go. I did a lot of it at school up to the age of 18. And then I came upon the idea that I should have a go, being a professional actor, and that might be more enjoyable than being an amateur actor, just doing it on the weekends and doing some other job during that day. I’m glad I made that decision.
Your stage reputation has been titanic over the years. Did producers try and court you to move into film?
I always took a little bit of offence, even now, with that kind of thinking. I remember going in 1990 to America to play Hamlet and someone coming to the stage door, in Boston, and saying, ‘What film parts are you here for? You must be here for some films or want to do some films.’ I said, ‘No, I’m here to play Hamlet.’ And they said, ‘You’re only doing that to get into films.’ I thought, ‘How fucking offensive.’ And also, I felt like the agents I had before were saying, ‘It’s fine to be in the theatre but you’ve got to get into TV and film.’ That somehow was more legitimate for actors, and that made me very angry. I didn’t like the fact that in America people drop out of theatre productions – sometimes a week before the play opened – to go and do a film. The ‘betterment’ clause, it’s called. I don’t blame people, because it’s very hard to make a living as a theatre actor. And because films get so much more marketing than theatre… film actors are more famous and considered more highly in a way.
You did make
Intimacy in 2001, adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s novel, which caused a furore for the explicit sex scenes with you and Kerry Fox. How do you remember that?
The intention was to make a film about the difficulty of intimate relations in an urban setting, and it was based on a couple of books. It was a pretty painful experience, the way the film was treated, at least in England. It was a pretty painful, very vulnerable [time for] me. And I made it because I believed in that being a real situation, and that sometimes our body and our sense can lead us to true love; that it’s not just the mind or the heart that can lead you that way. The senses are generally considered inferior. There were a lot of good reasons to make it.
At that point, your film work had been very sporadic, with movies like
Prospero’s Books, Angels And Insects, The Other Boleyn Girl. Had there been other offers?
For a long time, I went up for films and didn’t get into films. I know Joel Coen… I know Frances [McDormand] and Joel very well. I just adore their films. I came