Fresh from appearing in Netflix hit Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” Mark Rylance’s latest big screen outing is “The Outfit,” in which he stars as Leonard, a 1950s tailor. It is a role that could not be more dissimilar to the fictional megalomaniac billionaire Peter Isherwell, whom Rylance plays in McKay’s disaster movie.
Written and directed by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning scribe behind “The Imitation Game,” “The Outfit” sees Rylance star as a Savile Row tailor who has fled across the Atlantic to escape his tragic past. Before long, however, Leonard finds himself surrounded by Chicago mobsters embroiled in a brutal turf war that spills into the sanctuary of his tailor shop.
Zoey Deutsch and Dylan O’Brien also star in the feature, which, although set entirely in Leonard’s Chicago-based shop, was shot over 24 days in the U.K. It will have its world premiere at the Berlinale on Feb. 14.
What attracted you to “The Outfit”?
The screenplay attracted me and the ambition and the faith in the screenplay. Because [Moore] was setting [the film] in three rooms, there wasn’t going to be much cinematic difference to the locations, so he was really going to depend on the acting and the story and the screenplay. I like old films too and it reminded me of old ‘40s and ‘50s films. And I liked Graham.
Did you do any research for the role of a tailor (or, more accurately, as Leonard distinguishes in the film, a “cutter”)?
I needed to know how to cut a suit so I spent a nice time with Campbell [Carey] at [Savile Row tailors] Huntsman. He is a top cutter in Britain — in the world, I guess — and he and his apprentice let me work with them as they made the suit that I wore in the [film]. I did tiny things, cut some fabric and marked some of the patterns and things like that, and tried to learn. I mean, I’ve always sewn patches and things on my clothes but I can’t sew to the speed that someone like Campbell or his tailor can.
Graham told Variety that you finished shooting “Don’t Look Up” on a Thursday or Friday and started rehearsals for “The Outfit” the following Monday. How did you shift between the characters of Peter Isherwell and Leonard so rapidly?
I don’t remember it being an issue. I probably was very busy. But you just have to let go, don’t you? You just have to really just let go of things and move into what’s here now and in front of you. I have a wonderful friend who works with me on voices, which is a key thing for me, I guess. And you know, I was lucky in my early years to be in [theatrical] repertory companies where you do one performance in the afternoon and a different play in the evening on a matinee day. And sometimes you would rehearse them both at the same time.
I find once something is done, I actually can’t remember the lines. I wish I could, I would know a lot of Shakespeare if I could remember all the lines I’ve learned at different times.
Do you worry about the future of cinema?
No, in the things I worry about it’s not very high I’m afraid. I think cinemas have been pretty crappy for a long time. They’ve not been nice places to go.
I think there’s good pressure on cinema owners to make the buildings a little bit nicer and the experience a little bit nicer.
If smaller films are not getting out there then it may be that the cinema is not quite the right place for people who want to see small films. I haven’t seen any Marvel films. Those big films that are now making it into the cinema are not things that particularly draw me.
You’ve never watched any Marvel movie?
No, I don’t think I have.
Would you ever want to be in one?
Well, I wouldn’t know how to make that decision because I’ve never seen one.
I mean, as a kid I loved Spider-Man. Spider-Man had a big effect on me as a kid and I’m a little bit tempted [to see it] when people talk about it. And I know Tom [Holland] and he’s a lovely, wonderful actor. They’re have been a lot of great actors [in Marvel films] — I’m not critical. I mean, I haven’t seen any of it so how can I criticize it? But of an evening, I’m more the kind of person who will watch “Drive My Car” or “The Hand of God.”
You’ve done films, television and theater [Rylance will not be at the premiere of “The Outfit” in Berlin because he is currently appearing in “Dr. Semmelweis” at the Bristol Old Vic theater in England, which he co-wrote]. Do you prefer one medium above the others?
I love to act. I really like to act in the way some kid might like to kick a football. On film and television you don’t get such a long extended period of acting as I do now in the theater. Tonight, I’ll be on for an hour and 14 minutes constantly playing the character, and then the interval, and then another hour and three minutes after that, constantly in character and playing. So it’s hard for film to compete with that opportunity.
That said, the acting in film is really fascinating and very, very challenging. It’s just all the waiting around and the other razzmatazz around film that’s a little tedious. But the actual acting in front of the cameras is very interesting and enjoyable. [Rylance hesitates over the word “enjoyable”]. I mean, I’m sighing because some of the film actors you work with have developed a technique of really just preparing what they’re doing before they come in and it doesn’t really make any difference what you do. They’re not really looking at you or listening to you other than being polite and being a good professional, but you do your take and then the camera comes around and you see that they do something that doesn’t relate at all to what you did and they’re not really looking and listening to you. They’re looking and listening to what they saw in the mirror.
And so that’s a little — not so much fun, because it’s not really acting. I mean, it is acting but there’s no interplay. It’s like playing tennis against a wall compared to really playing a game of tennis. And I really like that thing of looking in another person’s eyes and both of us believing a different reality than the one we are stuck in.