Larger than life: Mark Rylance on what playing the title character in The BFG taught him

Mark Rylance talks about his experience of playing the title role in The BFG, the film’s deeper themes of loneliness and friendship, and how it could be a beacon of hope for youngsters.

Actor Mark Rylance plays a lonely giant in need of companionship, who kidnaps a little girl in the film The BFG, out in theatres on August 11. Dave J Hogan / Getty Images

'I don't know if it's a fairy tale," muses Mark ­Rylance, the star of ­Steven Spielberg's glorious new adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book The BFG.

The story of an orphan called ­Sophie and the giant who kidnaps her, Rylance says it offers “something more” than the typical “Once upon a time” narrative.

“I’d call it more archetypal, this story,” he says. “You have to think, ‘What are giants?’ Most cultures probably have giant stories – and what do giants represent in our psyche? In this case, they’re kind of primal creatures and have enormous, completely unethical appetites, don’t they?”

This analysis might seem a little heavyweight for what is ostensibly a fable about friendship and loneliness, but Rylance is clearly the sort of thoughtful actor who carefully considers his roles from inside out.

The BFG reunites him with Spielberg after his Oscar-winning performance in the director's 2015 Cold War film Bridge of Spies. He plays the titular 25-foot Big Friendly Giant (with the help of some digital, motion-capture trickery) who abducts young Sophie (newcomer Ruby Barnhill) from London and takes her to Giant Country.

When the role that was offered to him, a week into filming of Bridge of Spies, Rylance had never worked with motion-capture – for which sensors are placed all over an actor's body and face, recording movements and facial gestures. These are fed into a computer which creates the character on screen.

“It was like a very good make-up job – a very expensive make-up job,” says Rylance with a laugh.

“The computer technology of it was incredible. If I moved, there’d be a man with a little iPod with a stick who would run around the studio with Steven saying, ‘Faster. Faster. It’s not looking right.’”

The supporting cast features several other notable British actors – including Downton Abbey star ­Penelope Wilton as Queen Elizabeth II, who is called on to help save the day when the BFG's fellow giants start invading Britain.

Wilton studied as much footage of the Queen as she could, particularly “when she wasn’t giving a formal speech”, the actress notes.

“I tried to find things when she was enjoying herself, like at the races ... and moments when she’s with her family and her grandchildren – snippets of her being in a more relaxed mood,” she says.

Talking of relaxed moods – and there’s no polite way of putting this – one scene featured the Queen afflicted by flatulence after she imbibes one of the BFG’s ­potions.

“I loved it,” says Wilton with a laugh. “I never knew when it was quite happening, but when I did fart, my seat went shooting back. So I sat in the seat – it was on a little runner that was pulled back with a very loud bang.”

And what does she think Her Royal Highness will make of the scene?

“I don’t know what she’ll think – I don’t know whether she’ll even see it – but her grandchildren might,” says Wilton.

Rebecca Hall, who plays the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, believes the story is a perfect expression of “what adults can learn from children”.

Encouraging us, as it does, to maintain a certain childlike naïveté and sense of wonder is why it's perfectly suited to the director of ET and Hook, she says.

“Spielberg is the person that is eternally youthful, and he sees the world with the same imagination and the same sort of excitement that a child does,” she says.

Rylance agrees, and says The BFG can be a beacon of hope to the younger generation.

“There’s so much negative stuff said about young people,” he says.

“Fear that they don’t read, that they can’t walk down the street without looking at their phones – but whatever the weakness of any generation, we depend on them. They do have hope.

“Sometimes they can believe that the impossible is possible, which is certainly what the BFG thinks when Sophie says, ‘Let’s get the Queen’s help.’”

• The BFG is in cinemas from Thursday, August 11