Some actors virtue signal to their hearts’ content but rarely take real-world action.
Not Mark Rylance.
The Oscar-winning actor from “Bridge of Spies” ended his 30-year relationship with the Royal Shakespeare Company to protest BP’s sponsorship of its arts programs.
“I do not wish to be associated with BP any more than I would with an arms dealer, a tobacco salesman or anyone who wilfully destroys the lives of others alive and unborn. Nor, I believe, would William Shakespeare,” he said.
The actor, knighted in 2017, also supports groups like the Stop the War Coalition and Artists for Palestine. That progressive activism seems a natural fit for the current Cancel Culture revolution.
Except Rylance fears the cultural tide far more than he embraces it.
The actor, most recently seen in “The Outfit, told Positive.News why the push to improve society comes with risks for a working actor. He fears a workplace conflict where one person’s accusations can trump the truth.
“I’m now looking at how to make a contractual requirement in places where I work, because I don’t feel safe.” The contract he envisages, would mean that, “If anyone in the workplace, man or woman, is accused of saying something, they’re judged by their peers. There should be a committee in the West End … made up of union members and peers, who hear both cases.
Law breakers must be dealt with, of course, but these issues involve colleagues and various interpretations.
“The cancellation culture is too merciless and puritan for me. There should be the option of mediation, the chance for the accused to apologise and to redeem themselves. We cannot, in our human consciousness, decide that someone is past redemption.” Rylance adds: “Eventually, love and forgiveness is the only way through.”
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