Kentish Express Ashford & District
Actor knighted at the Palace
Ashford- born actor Mark Rylance received a knighthood from the Duke of Cambridge in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
The star of stage, film and theatre was recognised for his services to theatre at the ceremony on Wednesday of last week, which also saw the likes of Olympic athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill and comedian Ken Dodd honoured.
Last year, the 57-year-old won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies. He played officer Rudolf Abel, who is arrested in 1950s New York and prosecuted as a spy in the film, which also starred Tom Hanks.
Mr Rylance was presented with his award by Prince William.
The notoriously private actor posed for pictures outside the palace wearing his trademark Homburg hat.
Speaking earlier this year, Rylance said he did not set much store by the various accolades he had collected over his career, explaining: “People say things about competing as actors and I know that is necessary to make a show out of it, but those actors are so good I feel I’m more of a spokesman when I win rather than better than the other nominees. I don’t take it too seriously.”
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.
Although born in Ashford, he moved to America as a child, when his parents emigrated to work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and launched his career when he starred in Desperado Corner at the Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre in 1981.
He returned to Britain to study at Rada in London, and went on to have a successful stage career that has ranged from working as artistic director at Shakespeare’s Globe to starring in Hamlet, Much Ado About Noth- ing 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 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.