Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. Known for his work on stage and screen, he has received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards… Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. Known for his work on stage and screen, he has received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2016 he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 he was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
Between 1995 and 2005 Rylance was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London. He appeared in the West End productions of Much Ado About Nothing in 1994 and Jerusalem in 2010, winning the Olivier Award for Best Actor for both. He has also appeared on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards: two for Best Actor for Boeing Boeing in 2008 and Jerusalem in 2011, and one for Best Featured Actor for Twelfth Night in 2014. He was Tony-nominated for his roles in Richard III in 2014 and Farinelli and the King in 2017.
Rylance's film roles include Prospero's Books (1991), Intimacy (2001), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) and Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (2015), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently collaborated with Spielberg acting in The BFG (2016) and Ready Player One (2018). He also appeared in Dunkirk (2017), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), Bones and All (2022) and The Outfit (2022).
On television, Rylance won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role as David Kelly in the 2005 Channel 4 drama The Government Inspector and for playing Thomas Cromwell in the 2015 BBC Two mini-series Wolf Hall; for the latter role, he received Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations. He completed his portrayal of Cromwell in the 2024 sequel Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.
Rylance is a patron of the London International Festival of Theatre; of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports peace-builders in areas of conflict; and of the Stop the War Coalition.
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