The Greatest Actor in the World!

Mark Rylance.

Who is the greatest actor in the world? Is that him above?

What would qualify anybody to be the greatest actor in the world? Nothing!

A lot of it would be a matter of taste; there are some actors that other actors think are fooling the public – they can cry on demand, they shout or laugh; they put on funny voices can do accents.

These are extremes of acting - anger and happiness; it's the bits in between that are hard.

What about those actors who are good at accents? That's not good acting. I heard someone say in Los Angeles 'put 2 British actors together and within minutes they are talking about accents.'

It's a misconception but I know what they mean.

To my mind there are 2 kinds of acting – the American way and the British way; when an American actor hears the word 'action' he will speak in the same voice and naturalism that he/she speaks in when off stage/screen.

In Britain the actor seems to choose an accent and do a 'voice.' We've been to drama school where we learn speech, diction, clarity and all the rest of it; and you can see it a mile off; I have been appalled by some of the acting I have seen on television since I've been back.

In Los Angeles, when I watched British Television, I watched the best: Foil's War, Spooks (MI5 in the USA), Downton Abbey and the rest of it then when I got back here I saw the rest!!!

Now who am I to be pontificating about such a thing? I am nobody but I have opinions.

On television in the USA the actor Ed Harris was being interviewed by, I think, Bill Maher and Bill Maher said he, Ed Harris, was the 'best actor on the planet!'

That's okay in itself, but Ed Harris didn't argue with him giving the impression that he believed it.

When that man above, Mark Rylance, was on television here he was asked what he thought about being called the best actor in the world. He said he didn't believe it. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't.

There are two actors who, over the past 50 or 60 years, have been considered the best: Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier.

Now there are a lot of people who never liked either of them. The British said they couldn't understand Brando and that he mumbled. Others said that Olivier was all technique but at least you could understand everything he said.

The problem with the pair of them is that they influenced a lot of their countrymen.

I saw lots of plays in Los Angeles and sometimes there were evenings of one act plays; these were obviously showcases where the performers tried to get influential directors and castings directors in to see their work. A lot of the men, you could tell, had been to the gym and wore tee shirts to show their muscles just like Brando in Streetcar.

From about the late forties up to fairly recently English actors couldn't do Richard III without thinking of Laurence Olivier – it's interesting that Mark Rylance is going to play him at The Globe in the new year!!

But more of him later.

So who is the best actor in the world? Is it Al Pacino or Robert de Niro – what about Dustin Hoffman or some of the British? Daniel Day Lewis, Michael Sheene? Bit hard for Dustin Hoffman to play a Clint Eastwood role? And vice versa. And what about the women? The so called actresses?

How can one person be considered the best?

Mark Rylance, it has been said, is the best living performer of Shakespeare; and yet he doesn't believe Shakespeare wrote any of it. He has jumped on the skeptic band wagon and because he truly is a great Shakespeare performer people will believe him. I have seen him and he is great.

He is in a play in the west end called Jerusalem; the title is taken from the English song Jerusalem and the song is sung in the play.

Very respected senior critics who have been reviewing plays for many many years have said that Rylance's performance is the greatest performance that they have ever seen.

That's saying something isn't it?

He has won a Tony on Broadway for it and in the west end the Laurence Olivier Award. He can't win more than that. Maybe the critics are right.

The trouble is it's very hard to get a ticket to see it – I'm trying I really am but it costs a fortune for a bad seat - a seat behind a pole; I'll let you know what I think; if I ever get in.