Kent-born actor Mark Rylance was tonight named best supporting actor at the Bafta awards.

Mark, who was born in Ashford, picked up the honour for his latest film role as a Soviet agent in Steven Spielberg's Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies.

He starred alongside Tom Hanks in the movie, in which he played officer Rudolf Abel, who is arrested in 1950s New York and prosecuted as a spy.

He had previously played Thomas Cromwell in the BBC drama Wolf Hall, which was filmed at Penshurst Place.

Rylance may have started life in Kent, but moved to America as a child, when his parents emigrated to work in Milwaukee.

He returned to the UK to study at Rada in London as a young adult. Now aged 54, he has forged a stellar stage and screen career that has ranged from artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe to TV work in Hamlet and Leonardo.

He also appeared in movie The Other Boleyn Girl and is in the upcoming big screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s BFG.