Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen, having 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.
He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, between 1995 and 2005. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he made his professional debut at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in 1980. 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 received Best Actor nominations for Richard III in 2014 and Farinelli and the King in 2017.
Rylance's film appearances include Prospero's Books (1991), Angels & Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), Intimacy (2001) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). He attracted attention for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (2015), for which he won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently collaborated with Spielberg in the title role of The BFG (2016), adapted from the Roald Dahl children's book, and as James Halliday in Ready Player One (2018), based on the novel of the same name. Other notable roles include in the films Dunkirk (2017), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), Don't Look Up (2021), 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 also received Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations. 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 British Stop the War Coalition.
