Mark Rylance’s life off-screen: from famous wife to family tragedy

Mark Rylance is back on our screens as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. The historical drama is a sequel series to Wolf Hall, which first aired back in 2015, and follows the career of Mark’s character, a politician navigating the court of King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis).

Mark, 64, is undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest actors, having enjoyed an illustrious career both on stage and on-screen. But how much do you know about his life away from the cameras? Find out about his famous wife and family here…

Mark’s famous wife

Mark is married to composer and director Claire van Kampen, 71, who was the first female musical director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. She’s been the Director of Theatre Music at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre since it opened in 1997. 

The couple have worked together on various projects, including the 2015 play, Farinelli and the King, which Claire wrote and composed while Mark starred. She also worked as the historical music advisor and arranger of Tudor music on Wolf Hall.

© Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

Mark and Claire first met back in 1987 during a production of The Wandering Jew at the National Theatre, where Claire was the musical director and Mark played the role of Agricola.

Reflecting on the early days of their romance, Claire told The Times in 2015: “I didn’t really notice him until one day I was playing the piano and, out of the corner of my eye, I just saw these wonderful calves, dancing away. I thought, ‘Gosh! Those are really well-developed calves. That’s unusual. You normally see that on a sportsperson.’ And I looked up and it was him!”

© Piers Allardyce/Shutterstock

She went on to reveal that it took her “a while” to realise Mark was interested in her. “He kept coming up to the piano and saying, ‘Can we run through my song just one more time?’ And I thought, this is bizarre. What’s wrong with him that he can’t remember?” she recalled. 

When the pair first met, Claire was married to architect Chris van Kampen, who agreed to a divorce. Mark calls him “one of my best friends,” according to The Times. 

Claire and Chris’s two daughters, Juliet and Nataasha, were “very insistent” that all three were friends, according to Mark. “The girls were very insistent, they would accept nothing less than we all became friends. They were adamant,” he said.

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Mark and Claire wed in Oxfordshire on 21 December, 1989. 

Mark’s stepdaughters and family tragedy

While Mark doesn’t have any children of his own, he became a stepdad to Claire’s daughters, Juliet and Nataasha, through their marriage.

Like Mark, Juliet, 45, is an actress and has professionally taken her stepdad’s surname, Rylance. She’s perhaps best known for her roles in The Knick, McMafia and Perry Mason.

© HBO / Warner Media

Nataasha, a filmmaker, tragically died in 2012 at the age of 28 after suffering a brain haemorrhage on board a flight from New York to London.

The family was struck by further tragedy in 2022 when Mark’s younger brother Jonathan Waters was killed in a cycling accident aged 60. 

In a statement at the time, Mark said: “I am so sorry to tell you that on 28 May my dear brother Jonathan Waters was knocked from his bicycle and tragically died of his injuries.”