Mark Rylance says Boris Johnson doesn’t have ‘wisdom’ but ‘he gets things done’

Mark Rylance has discussed UK politics, saying that while he doesn’t agree with Boris Johnson making policies, at least he “gets things done”.

The actor, who was most recently seen playing a tech billionaire in the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up, said the current political system in Britain is beyond repair, and the only politicians he rates are the Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and the Green MP Caroline Lucas.

“I’m sure there are a lot of other good MPs in parliament,” he told The Times, “but when it gets up to the level of leading a system that’s so broken I don’t really feel capable of judging.”

He added: “We need to hire politicians in the same way that you’d hire a chief executive, someone like Boris. You may not agree with his methods, but he gets things done.

“What I don’t agree with is Boris making policies. For that he has nowhere near the level of wisdom that we have in this country, among common people, not just the Eton-educated people.”

Rylance can next be seen playing the “world’s worst golfer” Maurice Flitcroft in the family comedy The Phantom of the Open, out in cinemas on 18 March.

Read The Independent’s four-star review of Don’t Look Up here and about how he based his character partly on Tesla CEO Elon Musk here.