20 Actors Who Had To Wait DECADES Before Hitting Big

8. Mark Rylance

If you're in any way familiar with Mark Rylance's acting career, it would be ridiculous to say that he was a genuine unknown until 2015, when he starred in Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies and went on to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

But Hollywood simply wasn't the actor's focus for decades, with most of his career spent in theater, having made his professional acting debut way back in 1980 - a full 35 years before Spielberg came a-knocking.

Again, though, Rylance was hardly an obscure figure in the theater world, having three Tony awards in 2008, 2011, and 2014, and so by the time he became a globally recognisable, Oscar-winning actor, he was already an extremely well-respected middle-aged stage performer.

But in the decade-plus since Bridge of Spies, Rylance has been a perennial figure in film, with notable roles in the likes of The BFG, Dunkirk, Ready Player One, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Bones and All, and The Outfit.