Who did Mark Rylance replace in Game of Thrones?

British actor, Mark Rylance played the role of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, which many people termed as the real-life Game of Thrones. 

“I jumped from a fictional world where players tried to stay alive while jockeying for power around a capricious king to a real-life story of those jockeying for power around a capricious king. Unlike Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall, the story of Thomas Cromwell’s rise as Henry VIII’s most trusted advisor, has few scenes of violence, no dragons, no white walkers, and no pitched battles,” he said.

Rylance was the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, between 1995 and 2005. He made his professional debut at Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in 1980 and appeared in the West End productions of Much Ado About Nothing in 1994.

He also starred in several movies and tv shows including Prospero’s Books (1991), Angels & Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), Intimacy (2001), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and more.

Rylance appeared on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards for Best Actor for Boeing Boeing in 2008, and Jerusalem in 2011, and one for Best Featured Actor for Twelfth Night in 2014.

He gained wide recognition after his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015), for he won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best  Supporting Actor. He also played the role of James Halliday in Ready Player One (2018).

Some of his other film credits include Dunkirk (2017), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), Don’t Look Up (2021), Bones and All (2022), The Outfit (2022), and more.

When it comes to his television career, he starred in The Government Inspector, Wolf Hall, My Grandparent’s War, Screen Two, and more.