Shocking Career Move: Actor Regrets Abandoning Cinema for 2010 Action Film with Jason Statham

Mark Rylance expressed strong dislike for his role in the 2011 action thriller “Blitz,” directed by Elliott Lester. The film featured Jason Statham as a violent, homophobic police officer who teams up with a gay colleague, played by Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon), to catch a serial killer. Rylance’s character, Detective Chief Inspector Bruce Roberts, was
spoiler:
brutally murdered early in the film.

In a 2022 interview with The Big Issue (via Independent), Rylance stated: “I quit cinema around 2010, after filming a dreadful movie titled Blitz. I hated it so much that I broke all contracts with my agents… I thought, ‘Damn!’ and stopped promoting myself.”

Rylance did not specify what he disliked about Blitz, but in another interview with The Irish Times that year, he reiterated his dissatisfaction with the film: “I thought: ‘No, this is terrible; it’s over.’”

From Disappointment to Spielberg: Rylance’s Revival

Upon his notable return to cinema in Steven Spielberg’s historical drama “Bridge of Spies” (2015), which earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Mark Rylance explained how his fate was reignited: “But nature abhors a vacuum. Spielberg came to see [my play] Twelfth Night and everything picked up again.”

Since “Bridge of Spies,” Mark Rylance has enjoyed a successful film career, appearing in “The BFG” (2016), “Dunkirk” (2017), “Ready Player One” (2018), “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (2020), “Don’t Look Up” (2021), and “Bones and All” (2022). On television, he has also been seen in “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light,” where he reprised his acclaimed role as Thomas Cromwell, a key historical figure in the court of Henry VIII, which he had originally portrayed in the first part of the miniseries, “Wolf Hall,” in 2015.

“Bridge of Spies” is available to rediscover on VOD.

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