[Music] --One of the most celebrated actors of his
generation, Oscar winner and three-time Tony winner, Mark Rylance is back on
Broadway in Farinelli and the King, written by his longtime collaborator and
wife Claire van Kampen. I sat down with the actor to talk about his Broadway
return and what's on the horizon.
--Mark, thank you so much for coming here and
doing this. How is it going over at the Belasco theater, your Broadway home?
--Oh yeah I suppose it is, yeah. It's going pretty well really well warm audiences
and some of the cast go out at the beginning you know and talk with the
with the audience because we like to feel people to feel welcomed and feel
they're in the same room with us. And they're meeting a lot of people coming
back to the third or fourth or even fifth time.
--Wow. --I mean I say a lot that
meeting some people who are doing it but there's a very embracing feeling from
the audience.
--Well once again the audience is on stage with you just like
with your Shakespeare double bill. How does that affect you on stage because I
feel like sometimes you're really getting some energy from the people who
are on stage with you?
--It's a bit like I'm shooting a close-up and a wide shot
at the same time in a film, so it keeps you on your toes, you know you you're
aware that there are people very near as near as we are now, and there are people
who are very far away so you are you need to be real for both of those groups
of people, kind of essential and simple for the people far away and and
obviously it loud enough and express it enough, and true enough for the people up
close.
--How do you find your way into a character that's mad? That has mental
illness?
--It's not difficult for myself. You um you say the things that are there to be said
and do the things that are there to be done, and then you connect with those
needs, those desires, and in if you are a shy person or if you're yourself quite
self-critical as I am, you you immerse yourself in the in the person's needs.
--How does it feel for you to be that close to such magnificent singing?
--It shakes me. It actually physically shakes me and I'm reminded that sound is a is
a penetrating force, that it can, those old commercials where they shattered
crystal glasses with a high note from a good singer.
But it um it literally shakes the cells of my body because the vibration is so
intense. It's quite emotional actually. It's quite an emotional feeling,
different than being on a roller coaster, but but similar in some way. You feel
you're having a physical sensation, as well as the tune being very beautiful
and emotional, but you get after after many hundreds of performances, you get
used to the tunes, even great tunes though actually still some of them move
me these are so beautiful. But what what never loses its power is the actual
vibration and the reminder that we are all just made up of vibrating cells.
--Do you relate to the King as an outsider? He's French, he's in Spain. And you grew
up in America but you're a British and then you hadn't we went back. I'm
wondering if there's any kind of personal relationship that you feel
about that?
--Yeah, my mother was always an outsider. She was always drawn to
alternative and outside interests and causes and things like that. And I've
I've inherited that from her. And you're right. Maybe it was to do with us being
emigrants and immigrants. And so yes I did always I was always aware that I was
an Englishman in America when I lived in Milwaukee and up in Connecticut. And then
much to my surprise when I went back to London, thinking I was going home to my
homeland, I was I was very American. They considered me very American. I had
deep American attitudes. America, America is much more much more keen on new ideas.
The English are wary of new ideas, that the old ideas have lasted so long
because they're good ideas why change them? Um but America's feels part
of its deep character I think is the embracement of new of progress and new
ideas.
--Do you feel in doing this play which your wife wrote and it's her first
produced play, and it feels to me like it was a dream come true for her to have
the play produced. Do you feel like
--For anyone.
--Well for anyone really, yes, but to have
your first play produced and then and in the West End, that you got to
experience this sort of journey together and do it together. Is that fun for you
to do?
--Yeah we've always done that.
--You're longtime collaborators of course --Yeah
that's we've been married 29, 28, 29 years now and from the start we we were always
thrilled by imagining different kind of theatrical events, and going to the
theatre. And then we've been lucky enough. And in those days, we just made up our
own things and lived hand to mouth to certain degree because our own things
were not necessarily mainstream or popular. And so it's been an
interesting progression took towards some finding people like Sonia Freedman
who supports our work so thoroughly, and and building up our own experience and
our knowledge and our attraction to reach more people with something of that
we consider beautiful or funny or fulfilling.
--Speaking of reaching a lot of
people, soon after Farinelli and the King ends its limited engagement, Ready
Player One will open in theaters.
--Oh yeah. --This couldn't be more different from
Farinelli and the King, which has no amplification, and candlelight, and is
very organic. And then you have this very computerised, very studio heavy film. Tell
me about working on that?
--Yeah it has a lot of motion capture, which is, and
Steven, you know, being one of the great classic American directors it can make a
film like Bridge of Spies or like the post which is a very classic traditional
film in the form Billy Wilder, and all that kind of with moving cameras and
everything quite classic and natural, but he's also very fascinated by technology
and what can be done as we move towards some simulation of life through
technology.
--You have an interesting history with Steven Spielberg, don't you?
Where you were offered a film and turned it down a long time ago, and now you seem
to be his go-to actor. You've done several things with him.
--He has a number
of go-to actors that he works with. I think Tom Hanks has much more
rights to that title than I do. We've become very good friends. I
love film. I I haven't done so much film, but I've always gone to lots and lots of
films. And so we have a shared love of old films and new films and all that. But
yes I did turn him down when I was 27.
--And that led you to more theater work
didn't it?
--It was because I there was a theater project I was
--You were deciding
between. Tell me how excited are you to return to Shakespeare's Globe and do
Othello with Andre Holland this summer?
--Very very excited, particularly to work
with Andre yeah. He's just a wonderful actor and a lovely man. And I think it's
gonna be a very moving Ohtello.
--Well we have to get going but before we do, what
will you be doing on Oscar night this year?
--I'm actually gonna be playing Aisly Ball at the Belasco Theatre. There's a
group of actors down doing a play called Hangmen in New York at the moment, and
one of them has been an in a company with me before, and they're coming down
to challenge us to an aisly ball tournament in the theatre, which is a
game we play backstage.
--So you'll just be cheering on your Dunkirk colleagues in
your mind? You won't be watching the broadcast?
--No I don't think I'll be
watching.
--Well mark, thank you so much for coming in. You're wonderful in Farinelli
and the King. --Thanks thanks yeah I think well we have
four weeks left, and yeah it's a it's a it's a really a unique, unusual piece.
I've never been in anything like it before. We're having a very nice time, the
audience is really propelling us into more humour and more depths and
experiences in the play. So we're having a very nice time with it.
--Wonderful well thank you so much.
--Okay.