Interview Mark Rylance The play’s still the thing The actor on Wolf Hall, working with Spielberg and imminent mega-stardom

here is a tide in the affairs in Wolf Hall in which Cromwell’s or consistency. The BBC’s been around about Mr Rylance, perhaps of men,’ says Shakespeare’s wife and daughters die from sweat- degraded for a number of years.’ encouraged by his propensity to T Brutus, ‘Which, taken at ing sickness, one cannot help but Mr Rylance played Anne Boleyn’s quote the Minnesota prose-poet the flood, leads on to fortune.’ Mark think of his personal tragedy. His father in The Other Boleyn Girl, Louis Jenkins in lieu of acceptance Rylance, the actor Al Pacino says Cromwell—more human than but his forays into film have been speeches. He has a reputation for plays Shakespeare ‘as if the Bard the monster of history—is very rare. Working with Mr Spielberg being Puckish with journalists, had written it for him the night much the author Hilary Mantel’s. was, he says, a delight: ‘He’s like but—and here I should admit that before’, is riding the highest tide ‘It wasn’t my job to read other a very, very creative child. Inc- he is a neighbour, in south London— of his career. He’s the central views of Cromwell and debate redibly intelligent, but adores I find him incredibly helpful: good character in the television event whether her view was legitimate stories and is very well organised.’ company, erudite, interesting and of the year, Wolf Hall. Next week, or not. I don’t think there is a his- Mr Rylance will be animated in interested in many things. he’s in the more familiar territory torical truth that she’s avoided and The BFG: ‘I act it with a little girl He is enjoying being ‘at that stage of the stage for Farinelli and the eccentrically gone into a different in a room and then they’ll stretch of my career where I can do some King, the sellout new play by his place. Because people so admired me to 24ft and give me big ears, of everything’, but one senses he wife, Claire van Kampen. Then, he’ll Thomas More, they’ve rather set but I’m told it will still be my eyes will be glad to return to ‘the inti- be in Vancouver for the Steven Cromwell as his foil. Hilary’s had and my voice.’ macy between actor and audience’ Spielberg film of the Roald Dahl another look at More and found in Farinelli, his wife’s first play. classic The BFG, followed by him not to be as pure, as utopian She’s a composer and arranged the the director’s Cold War thriller as we’ve imagined.’ It wasn’t Tudor music for Wolf Hall. They’ve St James Place, in which he will There was a sense during film- been married some 25 years, star with Tom Hanks. ing, he says, of working on some- my job to read having met at the National Theatre. With three Tonys (for Boeing- thing that was more than just ‘other views Mr Rylance, whose next stage Boeing, Jerusalem and his Olivia a TV drama: it was about ‘the project is also in the USA, in Nice in Twelfth Night), two Oliviers survival of the BBC’ itself. ‘One of Cromwell Fish, a play he created using Mr (Jerusalem, Much Ado About became aware from the visits of Jenkins’s writing, rarely has time Nothing) and a BAFTA for The people such as [Director-General] Out of character, that voice off in the conventional sense— Government Inspector, in which Tony Hall, that this kind of work— is soft and sing-song with an accent ‘every day is a mixture of imagining he played weapons expert David really wonderful, detailed work, that’s hard to place, the product’ and working’—but he enjoys gar- Kelly, Mr Rylance is often spoken with a great director, great loca- of a childhood spent largely in the dening, thinking about crop circles of as the finest stage actor of his tions—this won’t be happening American Midwest. He feels ‘Eng- and walking Apache, Nataasha’s generation. But with a relatively if those who are against the BBC lish at heart’, but ‘a bit of both’. Jack Russell, who once scampered anonymous face, he has—until have their way. We were very aware Summers were spent with grand- on stage when Mr Rylance was now—escaped the ghastly cult of of that. When I first acted with the parents in Sissinghurst, Kent: in Twelfth Night on Broadway. celebrity: camera phones capturing BBC in the 1980s, there were 40 ‘My grandmother knew Vita There’s also his stewardship his every move and demands for different teams of cameramen, Sackville-West. We used to nick of the Shakespearean Authorship ‘selfies’. Is he ready for this change? grips and so on. All of them are gone apples from her gardens.’ Critics Trust, which explores arguments ‘I really don’t know what will now, there’s no sense of a company bandy the ‘genius-eccentric’ tag that other people wrote or col- happen,’ he says. ‘I think there’s laborated on the plays. It’s possible, more of that stuff if you’re young. he thinks, that Sir Francis Bacon, I’m 55; when you get to this age, Mark Rylance the Earl of Oxford and Mary Sidney people aren’t so distracted by fame.’ Mark Rylance plays Thomas Cromwell in the six-part BBC were involved—like the Old This degree of exposure adaptation of Wolf Hall (on Wednesday nights) and Philippe V Masters, I suggest, who worked might have come two years ago. in Farinelli and The King at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for and with their patrons in the Mr Rylance was due to recite at Shakespeare’s Globe, London SE1 from February 11 to March 8 art world. ‘Exactly!’ he exclaims. Caliban’s ‘Be not afeard’ speech (020–7401 9919; www.shakespearesglobe.com) ‘And they do now, too. Do you in the opening ceremony of the Where is your favourite place in Britain? The Rollright Stones, think Spielberg makes his films London Olympics when the family on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border—I was married there alone? No, he has all kinds of suffered an appalling loss, the death What is your favourite building? The Royal Opera House people who help him, but he’s the of his 28-year-old stepdaughter central genius. It’s a grand mystery Book? Any collection by [American Pulitzer Prize-winning Nataasha from a brain haemor- [about Shakespeare] and I’m a great poet] Sharon Olds rhage. Mr Rylance, who is very lover of mysteries.’ Music? The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt close to his stepdaughters (the He continues: ‘I’m amazed that elder, Juliet, also acts and has Food? Indian curry people are so certain and closed taken his name), was replaced Alternative career? Pilot down. I think that’s a very boring by Sir Kenneth Branagh. Dinner guest? Sir Francis Bacon life.’ Boredom is far away when Watching him in the understated Mr Rylance is around. Who is your hero? Edouard Manet

John Millar but extraordinarily intense scene Flora Watkins

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