Academy Award – winning actor and long-standing Conscience supporter Sir Mark Rylance has written the public letter below, setting out his deep concerns about UK taxes being used to fund military spending at a time of escalating global conflict. He has also shared this letter with several national newspapers.
Sir Mark delivered the letter at the recent National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony in London, where he reflected on the rights of conscientious objection and the urgent need to redirect public money towards peacebuilding. A video of his reading can be found at the bottom of this page:
“WHEN people recognise me in the street I try to guess who it is they are recognising.
Often, they don’t know my actual name, just the name of a not-so-big friendly giant, a
Savile Row cutter, an avatar from Ready Player One or the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
And they know much more about the characters I play than about me, as actors are
generously granted the personalities of people we only pretend to be.
Of all the characters I have played I wish I had Thomas Cromwell’s mind, at least as
Hilary Mantel perceived it in Wolf Hall. Particularly when I feel overwhelmed, as I
often do these days, by the world’s troubles. Cromwell was so good when times
were bad.
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