David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, theatre director and playwright. He was the first artistic director of Shakespeares Globe in London, from 1995 to 2005. His film appearances include Prosperos Books , Angels and Insects , Institute Benjamenta , and Intimacy . Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies . He played the title role in Steven Spielbergs The BFG , a liveaction film adaptation of the childrens book by Roald Dahl. He will appear in Christopher Nolans Dunkirk based on the British evacuation in WWII.
Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent, to Anne and David Waters, both English teachers. One of his grandmothers was Irish. Both his grandfathers were POWs of the Japanese during World War II. Rylance has a sister named Susannah, an opera singer and author, and a brother, Jonathan, who works as a sommelier at Alice Waters restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. His parents moved to the United States in 1962, first to Connecticut and then Wisconsin in 1969, where his father taught English at the University School of Milwaukee. Rylance attended this school. He starred in most of the schools plays with the theatres director, Dale Gutzman, including the lead in a 1976 production of Hamlet, He played Romeo in the schools production of Romeo and Juliet.
Source: Wikipedia