Mark Rylance’s Plea to Tourists: Bear Shows Are ‘Torture’ – Stay Away

For Immediate Release:

12 December 2018

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

MARK RYLANCE’S PLEA TO TOURISTS: BEAR SHOWS ARE ‘TORTURE’ – STAY AWAY

Bridge of Spies Star Teams Up With PETA US to Blast ‘Cruel’ Travelling Animal Acts

London – “Wherever you see bears performing, they’re suffering,” says Oscar winner Sir Mark Rylance in a new PETA US video that details how travelling shows torment bears, from chaining and muzzling them to preventing them from digging, roaming, hibernating, and doing anything else that’s natural and important to them.

“Speaking as an actor, we should be clever enough to entertain people ourselves without putting animals through this kind of torture,” the theatre icon and Ready Player star says. “Please don’t buy a ticket to an event – a circus, a fair, any event – where you see a bear performing.”

Rylance also sat down for an exclusive video interview with PETA in which he shared his philosophy on animal rights. “I think people will look back in horror at our treatment of animals today,” he says. “There could be such a richer, more valuable relationship for us with animals. This ruling cosmology of the world at the moment that we are somehow separate from nature, that we are not animals ourselves […] is so isolating and solitary for people – and just not true.”

Since 2012, PETA US – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – has rescued more than 72 captive bears and transferred them to reputable sanctuaries where, as Rylance describes, “[the] rescued bears are thriving in huge habitats where they can spend their days roaming and foraging on natural terrain, swimming in ponds or pools, and living the way bears were always meant to live.”

Rylance joins a long list of celebrities – including Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, Penélope Cruz, Tom Hardy, Gillian Anderson, Alan Cumming, Joaquin Phoenix, and many others – who have teamed up with PETA and our affiliates to help protect animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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