0:00:08 > 0:00:15This programme contains some strong language
0:00:24 > 0:00:28The Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards are the theatrical equivalent
0:00:28 > 0:00:31of the Oscars on either side of the Atlantic.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33Mark Rylance has won two of each
0:00:33 > 0:00:36and for roles that demonstrate the range of his work.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing,
0:00:39 > 0:00:43a multiply adulterous architect in the French farce Boeing-Boeing,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46and most recently, Johnny "Rooster" Byron,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50a maverick traveller facing eviction by the local council
0:00:50 > 0:00:53in Jez Butterworth's modern epic, Jerusalem.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57Although Rylance's screen appearances have been sparing,
0:00:57 > 0:01:01he added a BAFTA Award to the shelf for his portrayal in The Government Inspector
0:01:01 > 0:01:05of Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert who was found dead
0:01:05 > 0:01:09after helping a journalist with a piece critical of the Iraq War.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14Amid these prize roles, Rylance was also artistic director for 10 years
0:01:14 > 0:01:18of the recreation in London of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre,
0:01:18 > 0:01:20although he's publicly questioned
0:01:20 > 0:01:23whether the plays were written by William Shakespeare.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28This is the GBS or the George Bernard Shaw Theatre
0:01:28 > 0:01:30at RADA, the drama school.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32You're a graduate of RADA,
0:01:32 > 0:01:34so presumably you have acted on this stage?
0:01:34 > 0:01:37I have, yeah. I've done my prize-fight here,
0:01:37 > 0:01:43where I played Zorro and dove over a table about where you're sitting.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45And I've done Stand Up And Entertain,
0:01:45 > 0:01:48which was one of the first things I wrote,
0:01:48 > 0:01:51about a mortician who fell in love with a dead body.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53It was a very funny piece, I didn't mean it to be funny.
0:01:53 > 0:01:59Yeah, I can remember particularly playing Panurge in Rabelais here,
0:01:59 > 0:02:04in the third term. But it was a nerve-racking little space, this.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07You walked into RADA today, which is what everyone wants, I suppose,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11an actor to be in this huge hit that has been in New York,
0:02:11 > 0:02:14now back in London, Jerusalem.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17And one of the things that fascinates me about actors
0:02:17 > 0:02:19is the element of chance in this.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22The role, which many people think is one of the great roles
0:02:22 > 0:02:26you could possibly have of Johnny "Rooster" Byron in Jerusalem.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29It could have gone to another actor,
0:02:29 > 0:02:31you could have been centred and turned it down.
0:02:31 > 0:02:37Yeah, yeah, you do have an increased sense of fortune
0:02:37 > 0:02:38or luck or fate as an actor.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42You have one or two, maybe three jobs that last a long time in their lives
0:02:42 > 0:02:46and the change is a major thing. We have changes all the time
0:02:46 > 0:02:48and it's rare that you work regularly with people,
0:02:48 > 0:02:50so there is a sense of fate and fortune.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53In this case, this play would not have got done
0:02:53 > 0:02:56if Ian Rickson hadn't really kept faith with it.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00I thought it would just be a six-week run at the Royal Court,
0:03:00 > 0:03:05and then there turned out to be a lot that I, so to speak, had to say
0:03:05 > 0:03:06in the role.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11We're talking early afternoon on a day when, in about five hours' time,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14you'll be on stage playing Johnny "Rooster" Byron again
0:03:14 > 0:03:17in Jerusalem for... I mean, you must be heading for what,
0:03:17 > 0:03:18300 performances now?
0:03:18 > 0:03:19- 400.- 400?
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Mm. Mm.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25It's a huge role, three hours of immense vocal and physical effort,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28but is it something you can do quite easily now
0:03:28 > 0:03:33or are you all day thinking, "I've got to do that this evening."
0:03:33 > 0:03:38I have an injury today in my shoulder, so I am slightly thinking
0:03:38 > 0:03:43when I have a moment, do I need to change some things?
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Do I not... Should I not lift the girl?
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Should I not lift the drum?
0:03:49 > 0:03:51Will it be all right?
0:03:51 > 0:03:54So I'm kind of monitoring and seeing if this is relaxed or not,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57or what's happening. But earlier in my career,
0:03:57 > 0:04:01say when I played Hamlet, I remember really from about noon on,
0:04:01 > 0:04:05I would be starting to take on the luggage and the worry.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08Rooster Byron's not a character who worries,
0:04:08 > 0:04:14he kind of has a deep, deep faith in the land
0:04:14 > 0:04:19and in fate and spirits and all kinds of things.
0:04:19 > 0:04:23So there isn't a lot to take on before, a lot of luggage,
0:04:23 > 0:04:29whereas with some parts, like Hamlet, you have to get the right tone of...
0:04:29 > 0:04:31really acid wit.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35You have to be in a great level of despair,
0:04:35 > 0:04:38a sense of meaninglessness, I suppose, and er...
0:04:39 > 0:04:42And so that initially took a lot of preparation.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44I also played that part for 400 times,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47and eventually I would be like this, I would be all right.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51And I knew how quickly to go where I needed to go.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56But, no, with Rooster Byron, if I wasn't with you today,
0:04:56 > 0:05:00I might be doing some physical work,
0:05:00 > 0:05:02weightlifting or something like that,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05just to keep myself looking as strong as I can.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08SHOUTING
0:05:08 > 0:05:11I'm standing right fucking here, man!
0:05:11 > 0:05:13I'll put you in the fucking ground!
0:05:13 > 0:05:16When was the last time you were up here in these woods?
0:05:16 > 0:05:18I don't think I've seen you since you was 16 years old,
0:05:18 > 0:05:22shooting cans, smoking, you wouldn't have bothered to come, rain or shine.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24Hey, do you remember that night we took them cards,
0:05:24 > 0:05:26the old ones with the devils on the back,
0:05:26 > 0:05:28and I laid them in a circle, didn't I?
0:05:28 > 0:05:31Just back in there, in the dead of night, it was pitch dark.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36We took a glass of wine, we poured it into a plate, a silver plate,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38it was like a blood red mirror,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41and you took the candle
0:05:41 > 0:05:44and you gazed into the mirror...
0:05:44 > 0:05:46and you shook.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50It's a huge, huge part and long, long speeches,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53so do you, in the way that opera singers have told me, that they
0:05:53 > 0:05:56have a little test sing in the morning to see where the voice is?
0:05:56 > 0:05:59I mean, do you just do a little bit in the morning,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01see where the voice is?
0:06:01 > 0:06:05I do make odd sounds throughout the day, yeah.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07I wish it was singing but it's more...
0:06:07 > 0:06:09GRUNTING
0:06:09 > 0:06:14ROOSTER'S ACCENT: Seeing if he's got that down there and what's happening down there.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Because it's a much lower voice than I use,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21and so there's a kind of opening of things like that.
0:06:21 > 0:06:22I don't quite know why
0:06:22 > 0:06:25but I remember the night before the Broadway opening,
0:06:25 > 0:06:27I think we had two shows on that day,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30and I really went home unable to say a word.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33I had not a sound to come out of me,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35which is a little bit panicky,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38but I thought, "No, I won't call Sonia Freidman or anyone yet,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40"I'll see what happens in the morning."
0:06:40 > 0:06:43- So you didn't tell the producer? - No. No.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45But you were worried, though?
0:06:47 > 0:06:51Yes and no. I'd had a lot of weeks where... This had happened before,
0:06:51 > 0:06:53not quite as intensely, but it had happened before
0:06:53 > 0:06:56and magically, in the morning, my voice had come back,
0:06:56 > 0:06:57often better.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00It's a bit of a mystery to me.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03And I'm told by people who have acted with you,
0:07:03 > 0:07:04and in fact you've told me in the past
0:07:04 > 0:07:07that you can be quite a frightening actor
0:07:07 > 0:07:10for some people to rehearse with and then to perform with,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13because you change things a lot. You improvise a lot in rehearsal
0:07:13 > 0:07:16and then you change moves on stage.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Yes, I've been thrown against a wall.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24When I was a younger actor at the RSC,
0:07:24 > 0:07:28I said a line standing up rather than lying down,
0:07:28 > 0:07:31but as we walked around in the other place to the next scene,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35the actor, who was much bigger than me,
0:07:35 > 0:07:39took me and placed me very violently against the lockers for a moment
0:07:39 > 0:07:43and said, "We're not all improvisers."
0:07:43 > 0:07:46And I think I'm much more appreciative
0:07:46 > 0:07:48of there being many different ways of working now,
0:07:48 > 0:07:50and if an actor says to me,
0:07:50 > 0:07:54as, for example, Alan David has done in Jerusalem, early on,
0:07:54 > 0:07:59he said, "Do you mind if we keep the moves the same in the last scene
0:07:59 > 0:08:01"in Jerusalem?" And I said, "Of course."
0:08:01 > 0:08:04You don't need to change moves to keep yourself alive,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08it just is a nice aspect to be able to do if both are comfortable.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10Once I said yes, then I noticed
0:08:10 > 0:08:12that he started to change moves all the time.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15And now, he's much better than me
0:08:15 > 0:08:18in terms of never, ever repeating anything.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21He always delivers a fresh performance,
0:08:21 > 0:08:25not only externally but internally, and the gift of that
0:08:25 > 0:08:29is it makes my job so much easier, in that I don't have to...
0:08:29 > 0:08:35I don't have to make up a sense that it's happening for the first time
0:08:35 > 0:08:38in a way it's never happened before, because it is happening
0:08:38 > 0:08:41for the first time in a way it's never happened before.
0:08:41 > 0:08:42But, um...
0:08:42 > 0:08:46That's an example of really not forcing your way of working
0:08:46 > 0:08:48on other people,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52which I hope now people feel,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55even though I'm often the leading man and have quite a bit of power now,
0:08:55 > 0:08:57that they have the right to say that to me.
0:08:57 > 0:09:02I try and be as clear as possible on the first day,
0:09:02 > 0:09:08even about my depressions, which I named as a trench to Joanna Lumley
0:09:08 > 0:09:10- on the first... - So you when you were doing La Bete
0:09:10 > 0:09:13with Joanna Lumley, you alarmed her on the first day?
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Yeah, yeah, yeah, saying...
0:09:16 > 0:09:18HE LAUGHS
0:09:18 > 0:09:22..trying to introduce myself and what I like to do
0:09:22 > 0:09:24and how I like to work,
0:09:24 > 0:09:26and on this occasion, I thought,
0:09:26 > 0:09:31"I'll try and undermine or get in front of these depressions
0:09:31 > 0:09:34"by naming it to everyone, so that they all know
0:09:34 > 0:09:36"that it's never about other people."
0:09:36 > 0:09:40It's always about me just going into a trench of self-criticism.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44- Anyway, she got alarmed, yeah. - She did get alarmed, yeah.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46But she made us all laugh.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50So you get depressed because you can't find the role in rehearsal?
0:09:52 > 0:09:55I don't quite know all the reasons of it. I...
0:09:55 > 0:09:57That is one of the reasons, yeah.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02I'm feeling a bit low at the moment actually, and Claire, my wife,
0:10:02 > 0:10:04reminded me that I came back...
0:10:06 > 0:10:08..a week ago or so and said, "He's gone,
0:10:08 > 0:10:11"he's gone, Rooster's gone, he's not there, I don't know where he is."
0:10:11 > 0:10:13And, er...
0:10:13 > 0:10:18And then I get very, very panicky and frightened.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21I don't, um...
0:10:21 > 0:10:24I got into acting really and worked so hard at it
0:10:24 > 0:10:28because of being terrified of being in front of people as myself,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31and so I completely immerse myself in these roles.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35So it's very odd the way...
0:10:35 > 0:10:39This repetition of a play, a deep play like Jerusalem,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41does have an odd effect on your psyche.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44Now I want to show you something, Dawn.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49You ready?
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Did you see it, Dawn?
0:11:07 > 0:11:09Did you see that?
0:11:10 > 0:11:12- Did you see it?- Yes.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16Well, now... There, now.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20When you're in a huge hit, which has happened to you several times,
0:11:20 > 0:11:22but is happening now with Jerusalem,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24you get that thing that people come to see it.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28I mean, everyone comes to see it, but then there might be movie stars,
0:11:28 > 0:11:31rock stars, prime ministers, presidents, Princes of Wales
0:11:31 > 0:11:32in the audience.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35Now, you know that, as an actor, but you can't block that out.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39- I mean that presumably changes things.- Some actors don't like to know who's in the audience,
0:11:39 > 0:11:41I really like to know who's in the audience,
0:11:41 > 0:11:45whether it's a friend or a famous person.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49I'm surprised by it sometimes, but I feed off...
0:11:49 > 0:11:53My imagination of who they are sometimes makes me feel like
0:11:53 > 0:11:54I'm playing the role like them.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56You might not even notice,
0:11:56 > 0:12:00but for me, it sometimes quite massively affects me.
0:12:00 > 0:12:02Because recently Bob Dylan was in.
0:12:02 > 0:12:03Yeah, I'm sorry,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06you gave me a nice prompt and I completely avoided it, didn't I?
0:12:09 > 0:12:12Yeah, Bob Dylan came, who's always been an inspiration to me,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14and um...
0:12:14 > 0:12:19You see, the effect there, was one of all the poetry in the play,
0:12:19 > 0:12:22the languages and the situations
0:12:22 > 0:12:25and thinking "Oh, Bob Dylan's looking at this, what does he make of that?"
0:12:25 > 0:12:27I had worked with him back in '86
0:12:27 > 0:12:32in a terrible film called Hearts Of Fire,
0:12:32 > 0:12:36which we dubbed Farts For Hire, and I played his bass player
0:12:36 > 0:12:41and was so full of fantasies of becoming his best friend,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43I sat next to him for hours and couldn't say a word,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45and eventually thought...
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Cos I felt I knew so much about him and he knew nothing about me, where could I begin?
0:12:49 > 0:12:51And I would sit there going through thousands and thousands
0:12:51 > 0:12:55of opening lines and rejecting them all, so eventually I was going crazy
0:12:55 > 0:12:58and I thought, "I'll just say the next thing that comes into my head."
0:12:58 > 0:13:00And I said to him, um...
0:13:00 > 0:13:04"What do you think's happening in Reykjavik, Bob?"
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Because Gorbachev and Reagan were meeting in Reykjavik.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10And as I said the words, Mark, I saw them fly in the air towards him
0:13:10 > 0:13:13like a terrible cluster bomb that was going to come back at me,
0:13:13 > 0:13:16and I thought, "No, Bob gave up politics in the '60s.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20"He's going to think you're some kind of spy or journalist or something."
0:13:20 > 0:13:23And then he looked up at me, was so askance, and said,
0:13:23 > 0:13:26"I don't know nothing about nothing."
0:13:26 > 0:13:30It was like a double-barrelled shotgun, I was murdered.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34But my wife always said to me that I would meet him again
0:13:34 > 0:13:36and she said, "He will come to something that you're in."
0:13:36 > 0:13:40Which I just... I said, "This is ridiculous.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42"What would he possibly come to that I'm in?"
0:13:42 > 0:13:45And there he is, he came to something I was in.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49So this time did you say, "What do you think's going on at the European Summit in Brussels?"
0:13:49 > 0:13:52No, I didn't. No, I didn't say anything like that.
0:13:52 > 0:13:57And actually, it was a blessing cos I was able to say more to him
0:13:57 > 0:14:00through playing the part than I could ever say myself.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04Without it even being my words,
0:14:04 > 0:14:10I was able to say more about what I felt and thought than if...
0:14:10 > 0:14:12Which is, I guess, why I'm in acting.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15Is there a concern as you come now to the end of Jerusalem,
0:14:15 > 0:14:20that after a part of that scale and that success,
0:14:20 > 0:14:25that other things will seem small and frail when you play them?
0:14:26 > 0:14:28No, I don't worry about other parts.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32Difference is... The variety is the spice.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34So many friends have died,
0:14:34 > 0:14:37my mother and two other elderly friends, close friends, have died
0:14:37 > 0:14:39during the run of it,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42and so many things have happened to me during the run of it,
0:14:42 > 0:14:47and it's kind of opened up a part of me that wasn't opened before.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49Um...
0:14:49 > 0:14:53And there's a wit and a humour to him and an ease about life,
0:14:53 > 0:14:55and a confidence and a devil...
0:14:55 > 0:15:01Come what may... That I'm a bit careful and Capricornish
0:15:01 > 0:15:03and I'll be sorry to say bye-bye to him
0:15:03 > 0:15:05more for the qualities he gives me,
0:15:05 > 0:15:08than because of any fear of other parts.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11All right, do you want to know what happens? Do you want to know the actual truth?
0:15:11 > 0:15:14I was minding me own business,
0:15:14 > 0:15:16settling in, spliff, Antiques Roadshow,
0:15:16 > 0:15:20when suddenly there's a knock on the door,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23so I gets up and I answers it, and standing, just outside here,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26is all seven birds off of the Pussycat Dolls.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29AUDIENCE LAUGHS
0:15:29 > 0:15:33They've got a case of Thunderbird, 200 Marlboros and seven Mars bars.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35I tried to slam the door,
0:15:35 > 0:15:39but they bum-rushed me clean across the kitchenette onto the bed...
0:15:39 > 0:15:42We travel back from Jerusalem to Kent,
0:15:42 > 0:15:45where everything began, although you can't have many memories of Kent
0:15:45 > 0:15:49because you left at the age of two, your family, to go to America.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51That's true. I was born in Ashford.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55We actually went off before I was two
0:15:55 > 0:15:58to Cyprus, and my parents taught at a mining camp in Cyprus.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00They were both English teachers, your parents?
0:16:00 > 0:16:02At that time, my father was an English teacher,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05and my mother was not at that time.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08She had done her English degree and everything
0:16:08 > 0:16:10but she was looking after us.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14When we did emigrate after Cyprus, to America, in '62,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17Um... I would...
0:16:17 > 0:16:20After a year or so, my father very cleverly got attached to a program
0:16:20 > 0:16:23that brought high school students to London for a cultural summer,
0:16:23 > 0:16:27and we would therefore have a free flight over
0:16:27 > 0:16:31and we would be deposited, in a nice way, with my grandparents
0:16:31 > 0:16:33in Sissinghurst in Kent.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36So I spent most of my summers
0:16:36 > 0:16:42between the house in Sissinghurst and being taken to the theatre
0:16:42 > 0:16:47and Stonehenge and all the different kind of the events of the summer.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52But the summers in Kent are a time
0:16:52 > 0:16:55when I learnt a bit about Rooster Byron too,
0:16:55 > 0:16:59cos there were these people, Romani people, living all around,
0:16:59 > 0:17:04and we as kids, you know, would hang around them.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06With your father being an English teacher,
0:17:06 > 0:17:07your mother being a teacher as well,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11I assume that education and reading were quite valued at home.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13And Shakespeare, who we'll discuss,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16became important in your life in a lot of different ways.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19Did your father introduce you to Shakespeare?
0:17:19 > 0:17:25They took me with the high school students to Stratford-upon-Avon,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27and yeah, they adored it.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29They adored it.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32And my father would do a wonderful thing before we went.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34He would gather all these...
0:17:34 > 0:17:36A lot of them were from Virginia,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39never been to Shakespeare before, so he would tell them the story.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41So he would tell them the story of Much Ado About Nothing,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45but he would do it very well, and he wouldn't tell them the ending,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48and he would say, "Watch. Watch.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51"There's a very interesting point that the actor has to interpret.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55"It's when the character playing Beatrice says, 'Kill Claudio.'
0:17:55 > 0:17:57"Watch Benedick and see what he does."
0:17:59 > 0:18:02He would give us these things to watch out for,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06like these would be very telling moments in the story,
0:18:06 > 0:18:11so he introduced me in that way to drama as stories, as plays
0:18:11 > 0:18:14rather than literature.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17I was acting Hamlet before I'd read plays.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21Plays were always like the ball in a football game,
0:18:21 > 0:18:24they were the thing to be kicked around, they weren't to be...
0:18:24 > 0:18:28They were never a test or an exam, for me.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33They were always a song to learn or a joke to tell.
0:18:33 > 0:18:34My mother would be very...
0:18:34 > 0:18:37Both of them would be very caught up with it.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40I remember us walking away from a first half of Henry IV, Part One
0:18:40 > 0:18:45at the RSC, across the gardens there to where the coaches were,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48two big coaches to take 90 kids back to Reading,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51and my mother saying to my father,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53and they were in charge of these kids, and she's saying,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56"I can't go, I have to go back and see the second part.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59"Life's too short. I have to see it.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03"It's so good, I have to see what happens to Falstaff."
0:19:03 > 0:19:05And my father saying, "Anne, you can't.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09"We've got to look after these... We've got to take these... What will we do?"
0:19:09 > 0:19:11"Well, I'm sorry, you'll have to figure it out," she said.
0:19:11 > 0:19:13Your first Shakespeare performances
0:19:13 > 0:19:15were at American schools, presumably?
0:19:15 > 0:19:20Yeah, my first role I played was Hamlet. Put my black hat on.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25- Was Hamlet! - So you started at the top?
0:19:25 > 0:19:29Yeah. Though Hamlet would say at the bottom. But um...
0:19:29 > 0:19:31Yeah, I know.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35And I didn't ask to play Hamlet. I had a very difficult
0:19:35 > 0:19:40but very inspired teacher, drama teacher and um...
0:19:41 > 0:19:45..who introduced me to a wide, wide range of drama.
0:19:47 > 0:19:53Adapted Dostoevsky, did The Brothers Capek, did Shakespeare,
0:19:53 > 0:19:56did American musicals, did original plays,
0:19:56 > 0:20:02it was an incredible wide spectrum of drama and he, when I was 15,
0:20:02 > 0:20:06said, "I think you should play Hamlet next year, aged 16."
0:20:06 > 0:20:10And with the bliss of ignorance, I thought, "Well, great."
0:20:10 > 0:20:13and I got a little copy of it, I remember, and carried it round
0:20:13 > 0:20:16all that summer. Um...
0:20:16 > 0:20:17Learning it.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20I've still got a tape of it, a little cassette tape,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23but unfortunately, this is my excuse, the tape has shrunk and so it's...
0:20:23 > 0:20:25"To-be-or-not-to-be..."
0:20:25 > 0:20:27It's very high and fast!
0:20:29 > 0:20:31It might be that the tape has expanded
0:20:31 > 0:20:34and it was actually even higher and faster.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37Now, funnily enough, I was going to say exactly the same thing.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39That if we had a tape of your performances,
0:20:39 > 0:20:43would there be anything you recognised as the roots of the actor you've become?
0:20:43 > 0:20:45Or is it all things you've got away from?
0:20:45 > 0:20:47Well, it's funny you say that,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50cos the actor who played Polonius, came and saw me in Jerusalem
0:20:50 > 0:20:54when I was on Broadway, and I hadn't seen Jeff Grygny for many years.
0:20:54 > 0:21:00And he said he recognised the same emotional expressions and qualities,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03he said, obviously much refined
0:21:03 > 0:21:09and now, you know, 30, 30 something years on...different.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13But he said at core it was the same thing as he remembered
0:21:13 > 0:21:16when I was 15, 16. Mm.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19- And the decision...- There's a Mickey Rooney in us all!
0:21:21 > 0:21:25And the decision to come from America to here, to RADA,
0:21:25 > 0:21:27I mean, was that an easy decision?
0:21:27 > 0:21:31The decision to be an actor, did it happen quickly?
0:21:31 > 0:21:33No, no...
0:21:33 > 0:21:38And actually, I really hadn't imagined that acting was a profession
0:21:38 > 0:21:41that I would enter.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44There was quite an ethic of service from my grandparents
0:21:44 > 0:21:49into my family and I had thought that I would do something useful
0:21:49 > 0:21:54like being a doctor or a lawyer or, I don't know, something professional
0:21:54 > 0:21:55and um...
0:21:55 > 0:21:57But really, since I was a child,
0:21:57 > 0:22:01I had... All my time had been spent, the way I enjoyed spending my time
0:22:01 > 0:22:04was pretending to be someone other than who I was
0:22:04 > 0:22:08and improvising for hours and hours and hours,
0:22:08 > 0:22:13taking plots like a commedia actor might from television programmes,
0:22:13 > 0:22:16like Star Trek, where you had the different characters,
0:22:16 > 0:22:18and we all knew the rules of these characters
0:22:18 > 0:22:23and then you would just improvise for hours and hours and hours, so...
0:22:23 > 0:22:26When acting then became apparent at school,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29and suddenly other kids were saying, "Oh, you're good at that,
0:22:29 > 0:22:31"you're the actor."
0:22:31 > 0:22:33And in that time when you're searching for the identity
0:22:33 > 0:22:37of who you are, it became a very passionate hobby,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41but I still thought it was really a hobby, and then around 16 or 17,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44I remember thinking quite clearly, "There are seven days in the week,
0:22:44 > 0:22:46"am I going to live...
0:22:46 > 0:22:50"work five of them for two where I would be in an amateur company?
0:22:50 > 0:22:53"That seems not such a great deal.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57"Maybe I should have a try and a go at all seven days,
0:22:57 > 0:22:59"being the thing I love to do."
0:23:01 > 0:23:03And so I looked into American schools
0:23:03 > 0:23:07and they were very expensive and they were also, at that time,
0:23:07 > 0:23:10four year courses where you didn't act on stage for three years,
0:23:10 > 0:23:14where in some cases you were broken down to a tearful, shaking mess
0:23:14 > 0:23:18and then rebuilt again. You know, like some Frankenstein creature.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22And though I have nothing against psychotherapy at all,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24at that time, that was real panic to me,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28I needed acting like I needed food, and I didn't need...
0:23:28 > 0:23:32I really at that time was terrified by the idea of someone
0:23:32 > 0:23:34breaking me down. Um...
0:23:34 > 0:23:36So RADA, on the other hand, you know,
0:23:36 > 0:23:40I was acting in this room six weeks after I was here,
0:23:40 > 0:23:43with an audience of, bless them, older people that used to come
0:23:43 > 0:23:45and watch us.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47I thought, "That's where I want to go."
0:23:47 > 0:23:49And I really wanted to be a theatre actor too,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52so London seemed the place.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54But it was a real long shot.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58I think my parents were very, very surprised when I got in.
0:23:58 > 0:23:59I was surprised.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02What kind of student were you? Were you very confident
0:24:02 > 0:24:04as an actor then?
0:24:04 > 0:24:07I don't... I don't know that I was confident.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12I had come from Milwaukee in the Midwest of America.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14This was the only school I knew existed in London.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18I was, no, I was bloody terrified.
0:24:18 > 0:24:19I was...
0:24:19 > 0:24:21I thought it would be full of Oliviers and Gielguds
0:24:21 > 0:24:24and all the illustrious alumni of this place.
0:24:24 > 0:24:26And, er...
0:24:26 > 0:24:29I really didn't think I would last very long, and so, um...
0:24:29 > 0:24:33I was very, very... I was very...
0:24:34 > 0:24:41..solitary and determined, you know, to make a go of it.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46Your accent is not easily placeable, there are many elements there,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49which I think is probably quite useful for an actor.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53But, what, bits of American, bits of English, bits of I don't know what.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55Bits of Welsh in there, to me.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00When I came here in '78, I really thought of myself as English.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03In Wisconsin, I was known as the Englishman
0:25:03 > 0:25:05and then the English actor.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07So it was a shock to me to go into shops
0:25:07 > 0:25:11and be known in this institution as American.
0:25:11 > 0:25:17That was confusing to me, and there was naturally a kind of...
0:25:18 > 0:25:20Racism is a funny word to use for it,
0:25:20 > 0:25:23but there was a lot of assumptions about...
0:25:23 > 0:25:25When you heard an American accent, a lot of assumptions,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29and some righteous anger from the students too, about Americans
0:25:29 > 0:25:31and American policy,
0:25:31 > 0:25:33which I knew nothing about.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37The news is so bad in America, I only knew about fires in Racine
0:25:37 > 0:25:39or other cities in Wisconsin.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44So it was a big eye-opener to come to London in the '70s
0:25:44 > 0:25:47and be politicised and see how passionate people were
0:25:47 > 0:25:49about politics.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53So I just needed to cover, I needed to be anonymous
0:25:53 > 0:25:55and not be picked out in shops,
0:25:55 > 0:25:59and so I adapted to as best an English accent as I could.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02I think once you do change your accent, then you become...
0:26:02 > 0:26:06The floodgates open and any part I subsequently played,
0:26:06 > 0:26:08I...
0:26:09 > 0:26:13It would leave little trails of that accent with me,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15particularly Irish parts.
0:26:15 > 0:26:22It is a kind of painter's palette almost, away from when I'm in a role.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25And when you said you were happy pretending to be other people,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27growing up, and obviously psychologists
0:26:27 > 0:26:30and armchair psychologists will lean forward,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33because there is this theory that some actors are actors
0:26:33 > 0:26:36because they're happier being other people than themselves.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38But you were like that, were you?
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was very happy...
0:26:43 > 0:26:48..being... I've always felt more liberated, more alive in that way.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52I've become... I've had to do a lot of public speaking and interviewing
0:26:52 > 0:26:54now to sell tickets and things like that,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57so I've become more comfortable with it. But I, um...
0:26:59 > 0:27:02I'm a classic actor in that way that...
0:27:02 > 0:27:06I remember meeting a kid when I was ten who had been in kindergarten
0:27:06 > 0:27:09with me when I was five or six, and he or she said to me,
0:27:09 > 0:27:13"Oh, I remember you, you were the kid who didn't say a word all year."
0:27:13 > 0:27:15And I didn't, because I couldn't be understood.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19Only my brother understood me, I was sent to speech classes and things.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23I couldn't speak in a way that was...
0:27:23 > 0:27:25I don't think I formed consonants.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29Though my father says that the speech therapist
0:27:29 > 0:27:31didn't quite understand what...
0:27:31 > 0:27:33It was a case he didn't quite understand.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36Did you have any sense of your parents being worried about you?
0:27:36 > 0:27:40Yes, early on like that, yeah. Yeah.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43I can remember being in a train,
0:27:43 > 0:27:46maybe on the Charing Cross Line down to Staplehurst,
0:27:46 > 0:27:52and speaking excitedly out the window about something I was seeing...
0:27:52 > 0:27:56and then looking back and being aware that my father was embarrassed
0:27:56 > 0:27:59cos other people in the carriage were looking at me.
0:27:59 > 0:28:00Um...
0:28:01 > 0:28:05But I don't remember it being a painful thing,
0:28:05 > 0:28:08I just kept quiet after a while.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11And then gradually, gradually found my way.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14I like to think that I found my way by playing other characters
0:28:14 > 0:28:19and that when I acted Spock or Captain Kirk, I could speak well,
0:28:19 > 0:28:21but I'm not sure that that's the case.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23I've picked out various roles from your career,
0:28:23 > 0:28:28leading up to Jerusalem that express various aspects of your acting.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31Shakespeare, which had been there from school,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34and is very strongly present there early on.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37At the RSC, there were major roles from very early on,
0:28:37 > 0:28:39Ariel, Hamlet, Romeo.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43Were you setting out to be a classical, a Shakespearean actor?
0:28:43 > 0:28:45No, funnily enough, Mark, I wasn't.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50I was really interested in the other companies
0:28:50 > 0:28:53and shared experience at that time,
0:28:53 > 0:28:56and later on in Complicite,
0:28:56 > 0:29:01and indeed formed my own company with other actors
0:29:01 > 0:29:03after my first time at the RSC.
0:29:04 > 0:29:09But somehow I had this natural... this ability with Shakespeare
0:29:09 > 0:29:12that meant I got offered work there.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14I was looking to be a different kind of actor, really.
0:29:14 > 0:29:19But that's what came about. And, um...
0:29:19 > 0:29:21And it was a good thing, it was a great thing,
0:29:21 > 0:29:26cos that '82 to '84 season had remarkable actors in it,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29and I learnt an incredible amount from that.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32- Michael Gambon was there, wasn't he? - Michael Gambon was there.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34Yeah. I wasn't in a production with him sadly.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36I never have been,
0:29:36 > 0:29:38though he's one of my favourite actors and favourite gentlemen.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43I learnt from observation, really, from going and watching him a lot.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46Although he is known for fooling around a lot
0:29:46 > 0:29:49and practical jokes and pranks.
0:29:49 > 0:29:50But do you do that?
0:29:50 > 0:29:54I do it sometimes, yeah. I do it sometimes.
0:29:54 > 0:29:55I don't do it out of despair.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58If I despair, then I actually get very serious.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04Michael, in my understanding of him, gets very bored and, um...
0:30:04 > 0:30:07has a kind of, um...
0:30:07 > 0:30:11has a great suspicion of being an actor.
0:30:11 > 0:30:18I despair of some aspects of actors. My own behaviour sometimes.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21Such as?
0:30:21 > 0:30:24There is a concern with yourself isn't there,
0:30:24 > 0:30:30because you're using yourself so there is an ability to lie.
0:30:33 > 0:30:39My mother died recently and she left us in her papers all these letters
0:30:39 > 0:30:44she had written to her mother when we were young at this school in the '60s.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48They were very illuminating but one of them was really interesting.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53In it, she said, "Mark has a tendency to lie.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56"He doesn't like to erm... He covers things."
0:30:56 > 0:31:03It is a temptation which I have to be careful about.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08It is a thing I can do because of my ability to act. I can convince myself.
0:31:08 > 0:31:15I have to discipline myself about that and not use that ability.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17We've talked about you been at the RSC.
0:31:17 > 0:31:24As I understand it, director's theatre was the thing at that time at the RSC.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26And you have always been resistant to that.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29I've always had a bit of an authority problem.
0:31:29 > 0:31:31The teacher in school who taught me,
0:31:31 > 0:31:35he allowed me to be involved in all aspects of the production.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37I was really involved in everything.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41The most crucial thing he taught me was that even in the classics,
0:31:41 > 0:31:43we're saying something that we want to say.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48We are saying something to the audience. This is a communication.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51It is behind the mask of a play that someone else wrote.
0:31:51 > 0:31:59I really wanted to be involved and I was completely shocked
0:31:59 > 0:32:03when I entered the profession and realised that an actor is just a waiter.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07You were just expected to deliver the plate.
0:32:07 > 0:32:13You had nothing to do with what plate was served, there wasn't even a discussion.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17There was some kind of pretend at discussion
0:32:17 > 0:32:20and once you'd delivered what they needed, bang, don't change it.
0:32:20 > 0:32:28The RSC was called "The kindergarten run by the Mafia" in that season.
0:32:28 > 0:32:34It was really one of the birthplaces of so-called directors' theatre,
0:32:34 > 0:32:37of conceptions, of plays and parts,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41which I think is not a very helpful thing.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44After the RSC, my great friend from RADA, David Moylen and I
0:32:44 > 0:32:49and five other RADA actors began to explore working without a director.
0:32:49 > 0:32:55What would happen if we made a production of Othello without a director?
0:32:55 > 0:33:00How would we work? What would that be like if we didn't have that person in the room?
0:33:00 > 0:33:04It was very interesting to explore the cooperative movement.
0:33:04 > 0:33:10And another of your attempts to take control and take theatre to places where theatre wasn't
0:33:10 > 0:33:13was the company, Phoebus' Cart, that you founded.
0:33:13 > 0:33:19When I met my wife, Claire, in '87 who was a classical pianist
0:33:19 > 0:33:23and we wanted to involve music and dance more.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27We had met through a wonderful landscape cosmologist called Peter Dawkins
0:33:27 > 0:33:30who came quite a mentor to me.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32We had got very interested in the Rollright Stones
0:33:32 > 0:33:36and what these ancient circles were about.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39Why they were there and how they can be used.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42The first thing was The Tempest we did in the Rollright Stones.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46At that time, I lived in a caravan with Claire
0:33:46 > 0:33:50and we mortgaged our apartment to mount the production.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53We were going to do it with the RSC but then they dropped it.
0:33:53 > 0:33:54They dropped it.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57If they'd kept it, I would probably still be with the RSC.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01The early 1990s was a breakthrough period. There were two big awards.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05First the Olivier Award for Much Ado About Nothing
0:34:05 > 0:34:12but also a TV award, The Radio Times Best Newcomer Award for the Grass Arena.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15Now, looking back, that's quite a significant role
0:34:15 > 0:34:21because it's an example of total emersion acting of a kind that you've done.
0:34:21 > 0:34:28- Again, a figure on the edge. This alcoholic who was a boxer, went to jail.- John Healey.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30Yes, John Healey, based on his memoir.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33Then discovered this talent for chess and you got to do both
0:34:33 > 0:34:39the physical in the boxing, but also the cerebral in the chess.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43It's very challenging to play someone who then comes on set and watches.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47He was actually in some of the scenes.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50He played a prisoner in one of the scenes.
0:34:50 > 0:34:55- That was very remarkable.- Also, he's quite an intense character.
0:34:55 > 0:35:01John? Yes, very intense, particularly if he'd had a drink. Very strong.
0:35:01 > 0:35:06He taught me meditation actually. I used to go to his little flat in King's Cross
0:35:06 > 0:35:10where he and his mother lived and he taught me chanting,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12which had been something he'd used.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16He'd had to take on a lot of disciplines to help him
0:35:16 > 0:35:19through the initial stages of a chess game.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21Once he got to the middle of the game,
0:35:21 > 0:35:23then he knew how to deceive people.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26But the openings, he could never learn all the openings
0:35:26 > 0:35:29and so the openings were very, very tense for him,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32that the master he was playing would be better than him.
0:35:32 > 0:35:37He would go and stand on his head or do some meditation.
0:35:37 > 0:35:38He is a brilliant chanter.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40In this little council flat bedroom...
0:35:40 > 0:35:43HE GRUNTS AND GRUMBLES
0:35:43 > 0:35:45Not a beautiful sound at all.
0:35:45 > 0:35:50He was very dismissive of middle-class beautiful chanting. He thought it was rubbish.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54His was real guttural chanting for 20, 30 or 40 minutes,
0:35:54 > 0:36:00and we would sit there until my knees had gone blue chanting with him.
0:36:00 > 0:36:04He is a remarkable character. He is still alive. Really remarkable character.
0:36:04 > 0:36:07Psst.
0:36:12 > 0:36:14What are you doing?
0:36:14 > 0:36:20Rinsing out my brain cells. Helps me to concentrate.
0:36:29 > 0:36:33A very significant part of your life, the Globe Theatre,
0:36:33 > 0:36:35for the 10 years, from 1995, Artistic Director.
0:36:35 > 0:36:39That was again a form of actor power.
0:36:39 > 0:36:45Going back to Shakespeare's day where the actor did have that power.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48There was a real desire for an actor's theatre.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52You say actor power. That's not a power over the director,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57but to recognise that the theatre is about the connection between the actor and the audience.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01Everything else should be to make that connection as wonderful as possible,
0:37:01 > 0:37:05as varied as possible. That's what good directing should be about.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07That's what we should help each other to do.
0:37:07 > 0:37:12Another thing you explored at the Globe was single gender, male gender performance.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15Twelfth Night, you played Olivia.
0:37:15 > 0:37:21To some people that was a gimmick, but it was going back to the way it would have been done.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25The history of the job was Sam Wanamaker's 25-year struggle,
0:37:25 > 0:37:31concluding with his death, to make a faithful reconstruction of this place.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36It seemed to me that at least sometimes
0:37:36 > 0:37:38we should follow his lead
0:37:38 > 0:37:44and we should try and replicate the materials, crafts
0:37:44 > 0:37:48and research that went into the building.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52The all-male production was an obvious thing to try.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54Some of the experiments were so difficult,
0:37:54 > 0:37:58like the fact they had rushes and reeds on the stage.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01But when we did that in Henry V, it just made me
0:38:01 > 0:38:04look like a mixture of a Samurai warrior and Groucho Marx.
0:38:04 > 0:38:09I had to come on with this bizarre walk over the rushes and reeds.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Poor Richard Olivier would be cutting them
0:38:13 > 0:38:16and rolling them to try and get them as flat as possible,
0:38:16 > 0:38:22putting water on them. There were a lot of experiments that we took.
0:38:22 > 0:38:28My anger and sadness at the time was that none of the people writing about the Globe
0:38:28 > 0:38:33bothered to enquire about why we were trying those things.
0:38:33 > 0:38:39They just made fun or called it a trick. No-one seemed to see the apparent logic of it.
0:38:39 > 0:38:44And another way in which you went back to the way it was at the time,
0:38:44 > 0:38:49was that the audience would join in and shout things on occasions.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52Yes, I'm not one who has dinner with someone who just respects me.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57I want to be with someone who loves me or hates me.
0:38:57 > 0:39:02Respect is a little bit tedious and a lot of people go to Shakespeare,
0:39:02 > 0:39:06not least with respect, but with bloody fear that this is a cultural thing.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09Yes, I did encourage them at first to throw things
0:39:09 > 0:39:13and say things that we were all in the circle together.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17The wonderful thing about the space was that they learnt like we did.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20They were excessive, we were excessive, at first.
0:39:20 > 0:39:26Then we both gradually got interested as the theatre itself dried and the acoustics got better,
0:39:26 > 0:39:31because it was like playing a wet Stradivarius at first, or a wet Steinway.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34Someone shouted at you once that you were boring.
0:39:34 > 0:39:40Someone shouted when I was going particularly slowly on one speech,
0:39:40 > 0:39:41"Get a move on."
0:39:41 > 0:39:48And he was right. I had slowed down too much in talking with them.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50"Get on with it," he said.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53- So you genuinely didn't mind that? - Well...
0:39:53 > 0:39:58HE LAUGHS
0:39:59 > 0:40:04At the time, it was a bit of a shock.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07But in retrospect he was right.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11The more I thought about it, I thought, what a great thing.
0:40:11 > 0:40:15That would probably be better than any award,
0:40:15 > 0:40:19the time an audience felt that much authority and ownership
0:40:19 > 0:40:23of a Shakespeare performance to say, "Get on with it. Get a move on,"
0:40:23 > 0:40:29in terms of the power being given... You say, actor power.
0:40:29 > 0:40:36In a way, I have been an advocate for that but I have become an advocate for audience power
0:40:36 > 0:40:43and be more and more appalled by what we have done to the auditoriums of our theatres
0:40:43 > 0:40:47and how they were designed originally, these West End theatres
0:40:47 > 0:40:50with more thought for the audience than now.
0:40:50 > 0:40:55In recent years, you have become very involved in the Shakespeare authorship question
0:40:55 > 0:41:02with your play, "I am Shakespeare." A petition you organised with Derek Jacobi.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07It is not a petition, it is a declaration to be clear about why we think it is reasonable to doubt.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12But at what point in your life and career did you have doubts about Shakespeare?
0:41:12 > 0:41:18It was very interesting. I was playing Romeo at the RSC.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21I found in the Francis Bacon research through Peter Dawkins,
0:41:21 > 0:41:26all this amazing renaissance learning, the Kabbalah, and saw how clearly Shakespeare
0:41:26 > 0:41:32had used these structures, particularly in the comedies.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36The Cabbalistic Tree as a structure of the psyche.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39No-one had ever talked about renaissance learning
0:41:39 > 0:41:44because it is a problem if you believe that the man from Stratford wrote the plays.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47It is a problem to know that his knowledge of Italy
0:41:47 > 0:41:51is incredibly accurate because there is no evidence of him going to Italy.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54There is no evidence that he didn't go to Italy.
0:41:54 > 0:41:56Why couldn't he have not read in books?
0:41:56 > 0:42:01There is not a record of an education book learning,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05or ownership of books, or any notes in the margins of books,
0:42:05 > 0:42:12or access to the libraries where books were that he had.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15It is a problem. It is a reasonable thing to doubt.
0:42:15 > 0:42:20There are many benefits from doubting and looking at other things even if you remain a Stratfordian,
0:42:20 > 0:42:25you can learn a lot about people who were very influential people at the time.
0:42:25 > 0:42:31I think the present campaign by the Birthplace Trust has just been shameful.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34The repression of a question.
0:42:34 > 0:42:39The hiring of psycho-analysts to psycho-analyse someone like me without ever meeting me
0:42:39 > 0:42:43and assume that my scepticism is based on envy.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47I'm sorry there is literally evidence for all other writers
0:42:47 > 0:42:50who wrote for the theatre at that time.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52The kind of thing you would expect from a writer to leave,
0:42:52 > 0:42:55some piece of literary evidence that they were a writer,
0:42:55 > 0:42:59there is none for the Stratford man in the same categories.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03It is an argument that will go on for a long time
0:43:03 > 0:43:08and it's about time I stepped away from it because I don't have any faith.
0:43:08 > 0:43:13I'm afraid I don't have any faith in Shakespeare academia anymore.
0:43:13 > 0:43:19- I think they are a repressive force. - We get freaks in all profession,
0:43:19 > 0:43:24so we could prove that Paul McCartney could not have written The Beatles songs
0:43:24 > 0:43:30because he never learned music and he doesn't know how to technically read or write music.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34We could argue, and I think some people are snobbish about Shakespeare,
0:43:34 > 0:43:39we could say, "Come off it, some guy from a school in Milwaukee who played Hamlet there when he was 15,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44"he's not going to become one of the great classical actors." It's just not going to happen.
0:43:44 > 0:43:49No, but you would see my attendance at RSC performances,
0:43:49 > 0:43:55you would see my parents, their books and you would see the need.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00You would see the course. I am not an enemy of imagination or genius.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03I don't doubt you can be born with a certain genius,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06which I would say is a certain movement towards a certain area of life -
0:44:06 > 0:44:08Mozart, Beethoven, obviously they had genius
0:44:08 > 0:44:11and the author had a genius,
0:44:11 > 0:44:14but no man is born with book learning or life experience
0:44:14 > 0:44:18and he is remarkable in leaving no trail.
0:44:18 > 0:44:23One of your small number of significant screen roles,
0:44:23 > 0:44:28Intimacy, 2001, a Patrice Chereau film based on a Hanif Kureshi story.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31It was a literally an exposing role.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35Total nudity, very graphic, realistic sex scenes.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38Were you apprehensive or wary of that role for that reason?
0:44:38 > 0:44:43It's funny as we go through these things, the things I have forgotten. I'd forgotten about Intimacy.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47We talk about Intimacy. It shows where it stands in my consciousness.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51It was a huge fuss at the time and it was seen as very shocking
0:44:51 > 0:44:58and did you go into it thinking this is a shocking, risky piece of work?
0:45:02 > 0:45:06Patrice was such a genial man.
0:45:08 > 0:45:13I was cast as the alcoholic friend on the back of Grass Arena.
0:45:13 > 0:45:19And then the lead actor stepped away and Patrice came to me
0:45:19 > 0:45:21and said, "I'd like you to play Jay."
0:45:21 > 0:45:24I think that was the name of the character.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28I had read the short stories, The Wednesday Woman and Intimacy.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31The film is more based on The Wednesday Woman
0:45:31 > 0:45:36but he had described to me how the film was about the difficulty
0:45:36 > 0:45:42of finding intimacy in life and that was an issue for me at that time.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45I don't know how intimate I am with people.
0:45:45 > 0:45:50So the film philosophically appealed to me and the script appealed to me.
0:45:50 > 0:45:56But it turned out shocking me as much as anything
0:45:56 > 0:46:00and I regret many aspects of it.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03The too much was seen and done on screen.
0:46:07 > 0:46:08Yes.
0:46:08 > 0:46:13The story was about two people who don't know each other emotionally, intellectually
0:46:13 > 0:46:17in any other way than physically and they just meet on this Wednesday
0:46:17 > 0:46:24and have a physical love affair, so it had to be about us being naked and physical
0:46:24 > 0:46:28and then there's a moment where, in the story
0:46:28 > 0:46:33the man lies back after making love and thinks,
0:46:33 > 0:46:39"I've never felt so intimately in love with someone in my entire life as I do with this woman
0:46:39 > 0:46:40"who I know nothing about."
0:46:40 > 0:46:44And he can't stop himself then following her.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48And then you have the demise... What happens is knowledge comes in.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51It is a beautiful story, not unlike Last Tango, I guess.
0:46:51 > 0:46:57But when you film love scenes... On that film, they filmed all of them in four days,
0:46:57 > 0:47:01so it was a disaster physically and emotionally. It was a real disaster for me
0:47:01 > 0:47:07and I didn't have the confidence to say after the first day, "I can't do another day like this."
0:47:07 > 0:47:13I literally blew a fuse which didn't get repaired for about two months.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16It was really that shocking to me.
0:47:16 > 0:47:23It's raised my respect for porn stars but it was shocking.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28And then on set, in the midst of very low self-esteem, Patrice said,
0:47:28 > 0:47:33"I think we really need to have some oral sex at this moment,"
0:47:33 > 0:47:40which was the very moment when Jay was to lie back and think, "I've never loved someone."
0:47:40 > 0:47:45All my alarm bells were going off about it, not least because it was not what he had ever..
0:47:45 > 0:47:50It is in the script but we had asked him a number of times, "Are you going to show that
0:47:50 > 0:47:54"or is that going to be off-camera?" "Oh, we'll see when we get there."
0:47:54 > 0:47:59To bring that on us, on the day and to be made to feel bourgeois
0:47:59 > 0:48:05because one wasn't sure it was the right thing to do
0:48:05 > 0:48:09was a big, terrible mistake of mine to say yes to it.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12And it ruined the film, I felt.
0:48:12 > 0:48:17It ruined the film because it became all that we wrote about.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20In the theatre, I would have had more confidence.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23On film, I don't have the same confidence and I regret it.
0:48:23 > 0:48:27I don't really care... I don't really care for films so much.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32I love going to films. I think they're wonderful, a lot of them. But making them is really, really hard.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36And there haven't been that many film roles.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39A TV one which again worked out extremely well.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43The Government Inspector, Peter Kosminsky's film about Dr David Kelly.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47He was found dead, reportedly by suicide after being revealed
0:48:47 > 0:48:51as the source for the journalist Andrew Gilligan during the Iraq War.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54Now this is a particular challenge.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58You were playing a real, recently live, recently dead person at a time
0:48:58 > 0:49:02when that story was extraordinarily raw and sensitive.
0:49:02 > 0:49:07I assume you couldn't speak to Dr David Kelly's family.
0:49:07 > 0:49:13No, they wouldn't speak with us. No, his wife and daughter didn't want to speak with us.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18It was very, very close. I remember I was filming in the hotel above Charing Cross Station
0:49:18 > 0:49:21where the meeting with Gilligan, I think was his name, took place.
0:49:21 > 0:49:26We were set up filming and in the one break, I went to the bartender
0:49:26 > 0:49:31to get a glass of water and he said to me, "Yeah, that's where they sat, over there.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35"Not where you're sitting, over there. It was a year ago."
0:49:35 > 0:49:37And it was bizarre,
0:49:37 > 0:49:41that the man had been aware of them sitting there,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44and here we were within a year of that fatal meeting.
0:49:44 > 0:49:47It was very powerful.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51This was a story on which most people had an opinion.
0:49:51 > 0:49:53They were either pro or against the Iraq War.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56They believed that Dr David Kelly committed suicide,
0:49:56 > 0:49:59or that he was murdered, or there was some kind of foul play.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02Now for you as an actor, playing him,
0:50:02 > 0:50:06you have to close that stuff out. You mustn't editorialise.
0:50:06 > 0:50:09You are playing Dr David Kelly, as he was to himself.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11It has to be from the inside.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16I'm playing him in a story that's been devised by Peter Kosminsky.
0:50:16 > 0:50:18I'm not playing him in his life.
0:50:18 > 0:50:24Undoubtedly, his faith and his scientific training
0:50:24 > 0:50:31would have made him intensely, intensely depressed and erm...
0:50:31 > 0:50:36shamed by what he was forced to do near the end of his life.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40So those things are a given. If he was...
0:50:40 > 0:50:43If there was foul play, he was unaware of it,
0:50:43 > 0:50:45it would have taken him by surprise.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48If he took his own life, the depression
0:50:48 > 0:50:51and the other things would have been enough,
0:50:51 > 0:50:56I think, which is why... I suspect his family believes that.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58And they would know more than me.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01It was a wet day in the wood where we were filming
0:51:01 > 0:51:05and then really, it was just a very, very sombre...
0:51:05 > 0:51:09A feeling of intense loneliness was my memory of it.
0:51:11 > 0:51:17And...intense...claustrophobia and isolation.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13In recent years, you have, with the roles you've played, you've been setting the bar very, very high.
0:52:13 > 0:52:19With La Bete, the David Hirson play, the revival of which you took on in between runs of Jerusalem,
0:52:19 > 0:52:24this 30 minute opening speech in rhyming couplets.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28I mean, were there times in rehearsal
0:52:28 > 0:52:30and reading the script when you thought,
0:52:30 > 0:52:36- "I wish I hadn't taken this on"? - Um... There was a time on Broadway when I wish I hadn't taken it on
0:52:36 > 0:52:41but that was partly because of the initial shock of living in that electromagnetic field
0:52:41 > 0:52:45really did my system in and I'd have to run on Saturday night
0:52:45 > 0:52:51to the Hudson River just to get some sense of something natural. No, I never regretted that play.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55I wish we could have done something more to help the second half and the end of it.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01But it was very difficult after he'd written such an incredible piece of writing, how to follow it.
0:53:01 > 0:53:03That was a real struggle.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09Um... I don't learn lines before I rehearse.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12I dive in and...
0:53:12 > 0:53:14- Even in the case of that 30 minute speech?- No.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18I will go in and I will make it up and I'll look at the script again
0:53:18 > 0:53:21and do it again and my making up will be a bit better.
0:53:21 > 0:53:27Someone I know who was in La Bette said, "Ask him about the time the building collapsed on the cast."
0:53:27 > 0:53:31- What's that all about? - It was actually when the Music Box theatre collapsed.
0:53:31 > 0:53:36A bit of it collapsed. It was after a performance and we were in the dressing room,
0:53:36 > 0:53:41- but Joanna was crossing... - Joanna Lumley.- Joanna Lumley was crossing behind the set
0:53:41 > 0:53:45and we heard what we thought was an explosion in the dressing room.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49And it was actually a piece of concrete falling, probably not
0:53:49 > 0:53:54bigger than that, falling from the fly tower to the floor of the stage,
0:53:54 > 0:53:58literally five seconds after Joanna had walked underneath that space.
0:53:58 > 0:54:04And I was very, very er...angry and upset about it.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08- I'm told you became like a shop steward and you took on the management over it.- I did.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12I did. I think because of running the Globe and that being so much
0:54:12 > 0:54:17about architecture and building and seeing all the danger of...
0:54:17 > 0:54:21and looking at lots of maintenance budgets and things.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24I knew it was something you could pass by and skimp on.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27But the crew were very nice to me there and quietly thanked me.
0:54:27 > 0:54:32We're talking in the course of this interview mainly about stage roles, occasional film roles.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36Do you essentially see yourself now as a stage actor?
0:54:36 > 0:54:40I'm very happy to be a stage actor. I feel very lucky to be a stage actor.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43For a long part of my career,
0:54:43 > 0:54:50I felt like I was failing by not also being a film and television actor.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52But I don't see that that...
0:54:52 > 0:54:56I doubt that that is put on Dan Day-Lewis or Robert De Niro,
0:54:56 > 0:55:00that because they don't do theatre that they're a lesser actor.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03It's a thing that agents often tell actors.
0:55:03 > 0:55:09And...after an agent, I took on, really encouraged me
0:55:09 > 0:55:12to be in what I feel was a very, very poor film called Blitz,
0:55:12 > 0:55:16which was a very violent film, and...
0:55:16 > 0:55:21and I did it to appease the agent, I thought, "No, that's it. That's it."
0:55:21 > 0:55:26- Have you ever regretted becoming an actor, wanted to be something else? - I have an odd fantasy
0:55:26 > 0:55:32of wanting to be street cleaner. There's something about being out in the...
0:55:32 > 0:55:36walking around, seeing people, observing people. There's a part...
0:55:36 > 0:55:41That's a part of acting too. Having a job that's very simple, very apparent.
0:55:41 > 0:55:42It's done when it's done.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46You look back down the street and you've cleared up all this stuff.
0:55:46 > 0:55:51But there's something about just getting to know a neighbourhood,
0:55:51 > 0:55:56that moving around like an anonymous character in a neighbourhood
0:55:56 > 0:55:59and observing it that is curious to me.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01And, I guess, clearing up rubbish.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05Oh, dear!
0:56:05 > 0:56:12And finally, viewers may have wondered about the hat. But you like to have a hat with you.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16I do like to have a hat. My brother used to wear hats in high school.
0:56:16 > 0:56:22They'd go to the Salvation Army. There were lots of beautiful clothes and hats at that time in the '70s.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26We had to wear ties and jackets in this private school my dad and mum taught at.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30And so they were very pleased about taking a particular take on it,
0:56:30 > 0:56:34a cock up to the uniform by wearing the old '40s suits
0:56:34 > 0:56:37and the thin ties and the hats and the...
0:56:37 > 0:56:40"If you want us to wear a suit, we'll wear a suit!
0:56:40 > 0:56:43"We'll be stylish!" And so we all got into wearing hats.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48When I first got the job at the Globe, I was concerned that the Jane Fonda effect would hit me.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54When people knew that she was a political activist, they couldn't see her in roles any more.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57I thought, "People are just going to see me as the artistic director.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01"I won't be believable as an actor." I said to Claire, "I'll wear a mask.
0:57:01 > 0:57:06"Every press conference, I'm going to wear a mask." She said, "Like the Phantom of the Opera?"
0:57:06 > 0:57:08I said, "Maybe it's not a good idea."
0:57:08 > 0:57:11And she said, "No, I don't think it's a good idea at all."
0:57:11 > 0:57:16And a friend of mine who had had a mental breakdown and then he died
0:57:16 > 0:57:20and he was quite young and his father brought me his hat,
0:57:20 > 0:57:23and said, "Jonathan would like you to have this hat."
0:57:23 > 0:57:26Funnily enough, I now wear it as Rooster's hat.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28But it became my hat for the Globe.
0:57:28 > 0:57:33Whenever I did a press conference, as artistic director, I wore the hat.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38But I wore it to try and identify myself as the artistic director,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42separate from when I was playing a part.
0:57:42 > 0:57:44Mark Rylance, thank you very much.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd