Mark Rylance Wins Oscar for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies

Of Course Mark Rylance is also a great Stage and TV actor, theatre fans would remember him for his Tony award winning performance in Jez Butterworth’s play “Jerusalem”. However Mark has won 3 Tony awards, he also won best actor in “Boeing Boeing” and Best Features Actor in a Play for Twelfth Night. Mark has so many awards Wikipedia has a page just for his awards HERE. Just a small recap of Bridges of Spies –

 

 

Bridge of Spies is a 2015 American historical drama-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay written by Matt Charman, Ethan Coen, and Joel Coen. The film stars Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, and Alan Alda. Based on the 1960 U-2 incident during the Cold War, the film tells the story of lawyer James B. Donovan, who is entrusted with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers a pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a captive Soviet KGB spy held under the custody of the United States. The name of the film refers to the Glienicke Bridge, which connects Potsdam with Berlin, where the spy exchange took place.

Mark Rylance (born 1960),  is an English actor, theatre director and playwright. He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, from 1995 to 2005. His film appearances include Prospero’s Books (1991), Angels and Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), andIntimacy (2001). Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies (2015).

Rylance made his professional debut at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1980. He went on to win the Olivier Award for Best Actor for Much Ado About Nothing in 1994 and Jerusalem in 2010, and the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Boeing Boeing in 2008 and Jerusalem in 2011. He won a third Tony Award in 2014 for Twelfth Night. On television, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for his role as David Kelly in the 2005 Channel 4 drama The Government Inspector and was nominated for Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards for playing Thomas Cromwell in the 2015 BBC Two miniseries Wolf Hall.

Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent, the son of Anne (nee Skinner) and David Waters, both English teachers. One of his grandmothers was Irish. Both his grandfathers were POWs of the Japanese during World War II. Rylance has a sister named Susannah, an opera singer and author, and a brother, Jonathan, who works as a sommelier at Alice Waters’ (no relation) restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. His parents moved to the United States in 1962, first to Connecticut and then Wisconsin in 1969, where his father taught English at the University School of Milwaukee. Rylance attended this school. He starred in most of the school’s plays with the theatre’s director, Dale Gutzman, including the lead in a 1976 production of Hamlet, He played Romeo in the school’s production of Romeo and Juliet.

 

Jerusalem Trailer for London Season at the Apollo Theatre

See more of Mark Rylance at TheatreGold DataBase HERE

See Mark Rylance Theatre Memorabilia HERE