Sir Mark Rylance: Directors not hiring oddballs and difficult actors is a loss

Mark Rylance said ‘things have improved’ for diversity in entertainment (Suzan Moore/PA)

Sir Mark Rylance has said when he started his career more than 40 years ago there were “more oddballs” and directors now are not keen on working with “difficult” actors.

The 63-year-old Oscar-winning actor, best known for for his role as Thomas Cromwell in the adaption of Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall for which he won a Bafta, described himself at the start of his career as “temperamental, moody and difficult to understand”.