Sir Mark honoured in palace ceremony

Kent actor Mark Rylance has received a knighthood at Buckingham Palace.

The Ashford-born star, who starred in The BFG, is being recognised for his services to theatre.

The 57-year-old won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies in February 2015.

He starred alongside Tom Hanks in the movie, in which he played officer Rudolf Abel, who was arrested in 1950s New York and prosecuted as a spy.

Mr Rylance is also known for playing Thomas Cromwell in the BBC drama Wolf Hall, part of which was filmed at Penshurst Place near Tonbridge.

He moved to the USA as a child, when his parents emigrated to work in Milwaukee.

He returned to Britain to study at Rada in London as a young adult and went on to have a successful stage career that has ranged from artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe to starring in Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing and Leonardo. He was Thomas Boleyn in the film The Other Boleyn Girl, while more recently he appeared in the latest adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG.

Mr Rylance married composer and playwright Claire van Kampen in 1989 and became stepfather to her two children, Juliet and Nataasha, who died of a suspected brain haemorrhage at the age of 28 while on board a flight from New York in 2012.