I think I've developed a weird crush on Mark Rylance in Wolf Hall *

[KatParr]

As Thomas Cromwell. Those tortured brown eyes! He's the embodiment of suppressed emotion. But. The weird skull cap and hat combo. Would love to be enveloped in his fur-trimmed cloak however.

Hilary Mantel has done a blinder with the character of Cromwell and Mark Rylance plays him so beautifully.

• Disclaimer, I'm probably ovulating, which accounts for weird crush.

It is such brilliant tv. And yes, Rylance is mesmerising.

It’s not weird, he’s lovely everything he’s in, I think it’s his voice.

Haha me too.

Mark Rylance is such an amazing actor

Many of the female characters agree with you, it seems

I was just thinking this, how strange! I'm watching episode three when the kids go to bed. It's definitely the voice!

Nothing weird about that.

Me too. I loved him in Dont Look Up.

I’ve always fancied him a bit. I met him once and even though he seemed like a bit of an arse (and subsequent interviews have done little to dissuade me of that idea!) he was incredibly charismatic in an almost scarily quiet and intense way. Hard to describe – but he has really got something. And his voice is utterly lovely.

I have a crush on him too. I watched him in Dr Semmelweiss last year, and he was brilliant, if completely different from Wolf Hall.
His lovely wrinkly face.

I prefer Cromwell in the books. Rylance is lovely and brilliant, but Mantel's Cromwell is physically much more thuggish and absolutely the business.

'His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop’s palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.'

"Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning," says Thomas More, "and when you come back that night he''ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks'' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money."

Bloody love him.

I would. And I don’t go for any older men as a rule. He’s just the best actor of his generation and injects something… pathos? into everything he does.

Charisma. Knows when to shout and when to deliver a line quietly and with utter menace.

Nah, he will always be the small floppy enabler of whiny butterfly murdering rabbit to me. It’s the voice. It’s a Cromwell thing… 🤣🤦🏼‍♀️

😀

You need to watch the film ‘Intimacy’ that he starred in with Kerry Fox. I could never listen to Flop or the BFG in the same way again after that.😳

Wow maybe not so weird then!
I agree, it's partly the voice. I don't necessarily think Mantel played up the supposed real-life "thuggishness" of Cromwell (though I've only just started the 2nd book of the trilogy). He seems more just endlessly resourceful.

Cromwell is a very attractive personality - all that intelligence and power - and Rylance plays him well, it's the combination!

Just like Colin Firth was most attractive in P&P.

Fwiw, I'd love to have met Anne Boleyn, she must've been politically masterful to have navigated the Tudor court for as long as she did.

I watched "Intimacy " and he said the director took advantage of him and it caused trouble between him and his wife and also Kerry Fox's husband wasnt happy either.

It’s not just you OP. He is mesmerising. <drools>

I've just watched the trailer for Intimacy 😳😛

I read the book. Hanif Kureishi threw his wife under the bus.

He is pretty thuggish in the books. Thurston, his cook, says he looks like a man who knows how to dismember a carcass. He's described as looking like one of those square faced dogs that 'low men tow around on ropes.' Plus Raif (I think) says sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between Cronwell 'persuading'someone and knocking them down and stamping on them.

But Rylance is hypnotically good.

He is mesmerising and I am totally and utterly in love with Hilary Mantel's Cromwell so I had a head start. Especially odd as I am a Catholic brought up to love St Thomas More and practically weaned on "A Man for All Seasons"