Steven Spielberg and Mark Rylance's Shotgun Wedding
Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 7:09AM After two consecutive casting announcements from Amblin Entertainment, it’s official: Steven Spielberg and Mark Rylance are, like, totally BFFs! As if collaborating their way to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and finally bringing the Roald Dahl classic The BFG to the big screen weren’t enough, it looks like this dynamic duo – what are we calling them - Stark? Ryberg? Spylance? – are gonna shack up for two more big screen ventures. You won’t see us complaining. If Bridge of Spies was any indication, this fusing of sensibilities has the makings of a director-actor partnership for the ages.
While we’re on the subject of theatre and film titans merging, the plot thickens. As spilled on Twitter by Mark Harris, the entertainment industry’s atom-splitter emeritus, Lincoln’s dream team of Spielberg and Pulitzer Prize (and, in a just world, Oscar) winner Tony Kushner is triangulating with Rylance to bring The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara to theaters in 2017. Rylance will portray Pope Pius IX in this custody tale of a young Jewish yet baptized boy torn from his Italian family and thrust into a life in the Vatican. Giving Francis a run for his money in the saying a lot with a little department, one can expect Rylance to cheekily intone conflicts of dogma and birthright with a little more papal pomp and circumstance than his Academy Award-winning role. While the pedigrees will likely be polarized, one can’t help but think of the captor or savior complex of John Goodman in 10 Cloverfield Lane …but with much more silver-tongued, gold-hatted gravitas, to be sure.
And then yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter filled us in on the fact that Rylance is set to join Spielberg’s sci-fi actioner Ready Player One as an “enigmatic figure with shades of Howard Hughes and Steve Jobs.” Get a room, you two! Per the chronological tradition of Indiana Jones, by the time the credits for Ready Player One are about to roll – this, the fourth in their series – expect the pair to tie the knot with guest Shia LaBoeuf awkwardly linking arms on the side. This fistful of rice is about to explode.
As Steven Spielberg and Mark Rylance prepare to team up in cinemas again and again and again, what are some of your favorite director-actor combos in film history?
Reader Comments (12)
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell (10/15 features) and Scorsese and DeNiro (8/24 features) are the two that spring to mind.
I'm all for the next Bond movie to be called Spylance... esp if Hiddleston's lance is involved...
Pedro and Penélope
Wilder and Lemmon
PJ and Serkis (LOTR + King Kong)
Bergman + Ullman
Antonioni + Vitti
What happened to 'It's What I Do'? Is that still happening?
I was looking forward to Spielberg + female protagonist.
Are they just waiting on JL to be old enough to take on that part? :-/
Verhoeven and Stone. Sharron was considered for the Isabelle Huppert role in Elle. Hopefully they decide to collaborate again soon. Or Nicolas Winding Refn gives Stone a bright burning revelation as he did for Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives. It should have secured her a second Oscar nomination.
JB: Clint Eastwood or another, similar, director might wind up taking that. (Eastwood took on American Sniper after Spielberg bolted.)
JB - Spielberg always avoids having a female lead protagonist, for such a big name director it's more than a little shameful at this point. Scorsese is the same.
The media never call them out for it either.
The Rylance/Spielberg pairing is cool and all, but I'm much more excited at the prospect of two Tony Kushner-scripted movies in the next couple of years (he also handled the adaptation of Fences for Denzel Washington). His Lincoln script is an astonishing piece of dramatic writing. I want more from this guy. As much as he's willing to write!
What about that Spielberg movie with Jennifer Lawrence?
(Other than Rowlands/Cassavetes? <3 )
God I hope the Rylance coupling will be enough to keep him away from that Lawrence trash.
Spielberg-Rylance....? Yeah, I'll go for that. I'll even take an ensemble of a Spielberg film starring Hanks, Rylance, and Christian Bale.
Would be total fun if Mark plays J-Law's father directed by Spielberg.
Fuck off haters lol