Mark Rylance

Burleigh, absolutely; and a lot about Elizabeth. I mean I found when I play Henry V a lot of connections with the…

— Mark Rylance

It's something I've enjoyed since being a kid, the fantasy of it, the imagining I'm someone other than who I am. I've…

— Mark Rylance

We have people we admire, like Einstein, saying mystery is the most beautiful thing a human being can experience. Yet, everywhere in…

— Mark Rylance

I have great mood swings, maybe because of playing lots of different characters as I do. I'm like a gymnast whose muscles…

— Mark Rylance

The bad, angry, upset, wounded people are more interesting, so they're in the news more, but I don't think they're in the…

— Mark Rylance

A lot of actors, you can't get them to shut up. Instead of listening and watching, they're always telling you something.

— Mark Rylance

There are still people, obviously, who are stopping you and want a selfie because they need to justify their own lives by…

— Mark Rylance

Shakespeare was the main thing I did in my life from the age of 16 when I first played 'Hamlet' at school.…

— Mark Rylance

Well, my wife always says to me, and I think it's true, it's very difficult for us to understand the Elizabethan understanding…

— Mark Rylance

I don't think humanity is the highest form of life that will ever exist in the universe. Maybe that's a bit cynical.…

— Mark Rylance

I love poetry. If my mind gets a bit tight or bound up with information or depressed with bad news, I find…

— Mark Rylance

The publicity machine for films and television is so much bigger than for theatre.

— Mark Rylance

I'm quite simple, really. I like to play and inhabit my character. I really like to inhabit the situation. It's the situation…

— Mark Rylance

Nature is very cruel. It is much riskier to love any living being than not. I'm painfully aware that even my little…

— Mark Rylance

I think I find it easier to live on the stage than in life,

— Mark Rylance

I did audition a lot. One's agent is keen to get you into film and TV because there's more money. I was…

— Mark Rylance

There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

— Mark Rylance

I didn't particularly aim to be a Shakespeare actor, but I suppose I had a certain gift or it; I certainly got…

— Mark Rylance

It's strange how the mind works while you're acting, because you have all sorts of quick thoughts going on as well as…

— Mark Rylance

I think, early on, I was very distrustful of authority yet needed a lot of approval from it. I was in that…

— Mark Rylance

I think that was very important to Bacon... personally. I think he went to great efforts to get a house for the…

— Mark Rylance

It's difficult for me to say, but I don't think the sex scenes are particularly erotic.

— Mark Rylance

Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself,…

— Mark Rylance

The scientific-rational mindset is as much a cosmology as the Catholic mindset was in the Middle Ages; scientists are so proud of…

— Mark Rylance

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels.

— Mark Rylance