Mark Rylance

Giles Havergal and The Glasgow Citizens Theatre gave Mark his first professional job in 1980.

In the eighties and nineties, Mark worked with many theatre companies in England and America, including the NT; The Bush; The Tricycle, Contact (Manchester); TANA (New York); A.R.T. (Boston); The Guthrie (Minneapolis). He became an Associate Artist of the RSC, where he played Hamlet, Romeo, and a number of other roles. He founded two cooperative theatre companies, The London Theatre of Imagination and Phoebus’ Cart, which toured sacred sites such as The Rollright Stones.

He trained at RADA in the great days of Hugh Cruttwell and the work of Mike Alfreds, and his company, Shared Experience, continues to be particularly inspiring and transformative in all he does.

In 1996, at age 36, Mark became the first Artistic Director of Sam Wanamaker’s project to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Throughout his career, he has acted in more than 50 productions by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He is a trustee of The Shakespearean Authorship Trust and friend of The Francis Bacon Research Trust.

After leaving the Globe in 2006, Sonia Friedman became his angel. With her company and associates she has supported Rylance in eight productions, Boeing-Boeing, La Bête, Jerusalem, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Farinelli and the King, Nice Fish, and most recently Dr Semmelweis. Rylance was a co-author of Dr Semmelweis and Nice Fish, and also wrote I am Shakespeare for Greg Ripley Productions and The Chichester Festival Theatre.

Film work includes three films with Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies, The BFG, and Ready Player One. Other films include The Outfit, Don’t Look Up, The Phantom of the Open, Bones and All, Waiting for the Barbarians, Dunkirk, Prospero’s Books, The Grass Arena, and The Institute Benjamenta.

His television appearances include four mini-series with Peter Kosminsky; The Government Inspector, The Undeclared War, Wolf Hall, and the soon to be broadcast Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

Mark is an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple Hall in London. He is also a founding patron of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports local peacebuilders in areas of conflict. Lately his work has focused on Intermission Youth Theatre and The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. He will always be a patron of Survival, the international movement for Tribal Peoples and Stop the War.

In 2017 he was knighted for services to the Theatre.