‘DUNKIRK’ SPIRIT,
RYLANCE MUSTERS SPIRIT OF EPIC ‘DUNKIRK’ RESCUE
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Mark Rylance, a pivotal player in Christopher Nolan's epic World War II film “Dunkirk” (opening Friday), is an Oscar-winning Knight of the Realm who's regularly lauded as one of the world's greatest actors. But what does the man himself think of the acclaim?
“I try not to take anything anyone else says about me personally,” he said during an interview at the historic Barker Hangar, with a vintage British Spitfire fighter plane from the film nearby.
In multiple stories on land, sea and air, “Dunkirk” details the incredible but true rescue of 400,000 troops stranded on France's beach. With England in sight across the channel and the enemy ready to pounce, soldiers were saved by a flotilla of regular seagoing Brits in small boats.
Noted producer Emma Thomas (the filmmaker's wife) said, “What's incredible about the evacuation is it was the regular people who came and completely changed the course of history. That's what this is about.”
As Mr. Dawson, Rylance, 57, sets out in his cabin cruiser with his son (Tom Glynn-Carney) and another youngster (Barry Keoghan).
“He is a father witnessing his son grow up very rapidly. I always thought he took his son and indeed let the other boy on because he didn't know what was coming,” Rylance said.
London's Imperial War Museum was a valuable resource with “audio recordings of men like Mr. Dawson who helped me understand how little they knew about what they were going toward. “The government was keen not to frighten the English people and let them know how badly things were in France. These men just thought they were going to pick up some soldiers on a beach. They didn't know they were going to be under attack.”
With Nolan's penchant for reality, Rylance filmed on a boat “in this inland sea in Holland, which was very choppy but not as disturbing as the channel would have been.
“The first three days were actually in the water 300 yards off Dunkirk. I learned how to drive the boat by sailing down that pier, the Mole, which is the actual thing and is still there.
“You were aware that under the sunken sea were sunken boats and probably bodies. It was very haunting to be reminded of the sacrifice people made in the past for where we are now. That was very powerful.”