The actor and artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Mark Rylance, isn't a stranger to notoriety, or, at least, to the wagging of critics' tongues.

 

		Mark Rylance: "I don't think the sex scenes are particularly erotic"

But you can't imagine a less controversial figure, to meet him - he speaks softly, thoughtfully, wears a vaguely hippyish green silk shirt, jeans and battered trainers. Yet this is the man who asked Jane Horrocks, as Lady Macbeth, to hitch up her skirts and pee on stage, who believes that the "Stratford man" may not have written the plays we regard as Shakespeare's (he thinks Francis Bacon had a hand in them somewhere), and whose new film contains the first uncensored blow-job ever seen in an English-language movie allowed for general release.

Let's get that out of the way first. Intimacy is a film directed by Frenchman Patrice Chéreau, adapted from the writings of Hanif Kureishi. It centres on the non-relationship between two utter "strangers" who meet every Wednesday for sex, and is deeply, powerfully explicit. Surely, Rylance and Kerry Fox had to take their courage in their hands to act out these scenes.

The debate sparked by the film so far takes us no further than issues of censorship, and Rylance struggles a little with this. He makes an obvious distinction between Intimacy with its hard, but consensual, sex and the other sorts of soft sex 'n' violence movies that regularly appear on TV late at night. But, anyway, people are missing the point, he says - there are different kinds of intimacy, and the sort that takes a couple beyond the merely physical is the hardest thing in the world to achieve: that's what the film tells us, in part.

Interestingly, the spokeswoman for the British Board of Film Classification, which passed Intimacy uncut but gave it an 18 certificate, says: "The two people are equally involved in the relationship, there is no coercion, and it does not contravene our guidelines. Serious film-goers will think it is a good film." But what about the non-serious? Or does it carry a seriousness certificate, too?

"It's difficult for me to say, but I don't think the sex scenes are particularly erotic," says Rylance. "It's certainly not the intention to arouse with them, but to reveal something about these people. It's a bit like the Adam and Eve story, except the man is Eve. But none of us had ever done scenes like this, without any careful 'oh, we'll cover this but reveal that'. We just filmed this progression of how they make love, freely, in lots of different ways." It goes without saying that Rylance talked about the movie with his wife of more than 10 years beforehand.

In fact, it makes pretty good sense within the broader context of his acting and directing CV.

There are several "firsts" on it already - though none, perhaps, to interest both censor and tabloid press - not least his stewardship of Shakespeare's Globe, the Bankside experiment in Elizabethan stagecraft that has just opened its 2001 "Celtic Season" with King Lear.

Ironic, really, that after months of downpour the first night should take place beneath clear, azure skies. "Though the rain it raineth every day," John McEnery's Fool told us as we squinted through the evening sun. No matter. This is part of the Globe's charm, that the spell requires a greater communal effort of imagination - and therefore, when it works, offers greater reward - than does any other London theatre.

This is the sixth year of Rylance's tenure at the Globe, to be followed by another recently agreed three. He has therefore devoted a significant chunk of his life to the pursuit of this new, or rather centuries-old, theatrical experience, to the understanding of what he calls Shakespeare's "stage grammar" and our reaction to it. But there is still lots to learn.

And in the quest for greater insight, he has asked his actors to approach this season's three Shakespeares - King Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline - in ways that may equally raise eyebrows and perplex the modern-day traditionalists. This year, radically, Rylance is encouraging his company not to think about the plays too hard, not to have ideas about them.

I tell the artists that the main thing is to really pay attention to the story," he says. "Not to make a production of ideas about it. That's not our job. Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself, bigger than any Shakespearean actor I could hire, that we should take the opportunity to fill it with voice and verse and movement, not interpretation."

At this point, I should explain that Rylance and I are sitting in a pretty South London park eating take-away sushi - and the honesty and shock of what he says next makes me break a chopstick clean in two. "It's clear," he says, flatly, "that many great actors are stupid. They don't have many ideas. Listen to them talking about politics! Yet it's a childlike thing; Marlon Brando always says it's a child's game.

"It's the belief they have, to be there wholly, to retain their surprise at the world. Great actors try to dismiss all ideas from their conscious mind in order to provide an experience that is real."

It is, when you think about it, the logical next step in the Globe's bid for "authenticity". Shakespeare's actors didn't read the plays whole; they learned individual parts, with cues. They didn't sit down and discuss thematic ideas, or varying interpretations; they simply concentrated on their art, the craft of acting. This is why Rylance has pared down the 2001 season to just three main productions, to give the company a clear run at them, to hone perfectly their Shakpearean acting skills. Meanwhile, Julian Glover's King Lear already holds audiences spellbound, despite its bum-achingly long first half.

"The audience is ahead of us," says Rylance. "Its response is unique and much talked about, but I feel that what we do on the stage is not yet unique. Moments are incredible, but in my fantasy mind I see a Globe company which is renowned throughout the world for what it does with pure storytelling. So that people come and say: it's not just the building, it's the only place you can hear this kind of work."

It's this bid for inimitability and distinctiveness that characterises Rylance's work: call him what you like (and the film critics may have a field day with the release of Intimacy) but he's never boring.