Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh is a Northern Irish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He has directed or starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, and As You Like It...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth10 December 1960
CityBelfast, Northern Ireland
CountryIreland
I choose to be inspired by things that have been done well in the past. So, I don't worry about being compared, because I think that does paralyze you.
This is a very exciting departure for me as a filmmaker,
I was a big admirer of F.D.R. He saved Britain.
I made a bargain with myself. If I hadn't done it by 35, I'd walk away. Hamlet is at a crisis at this point in his life. This is a young man's play.
We wanted to do something that was a little closer to our own century and yet also was a world in which you could believe that people spoke in a slightly different way.
I think that music is crucially important in Shakespeare - and, clearly, was an important part of the Elizabethan theatre. And, it's always been something that was a profound element of the experience of Shakespeare that I have been drawn to - and interpreters have, as well.
In 'Henry V,' the story of the assumption of true and responsible leadership by Henry I think is hard-won. He has to lose friends; he has to risk his life.
How many times do you read about 'the Cinderella story,' the story of the underdog, the story of the ordinary human being, often subjected to cruelty and ignorance and neglect, who somehow triumphs?
You go to the airport and look at the bookstand, and you feel the titles are similar, the covers are similar, and you wonder how they can be different.
Sometimes I used to think to myself, 'Have I lost a sense of humor?' but I don't think that I have. I think one can be as snarky and sarcastic as lots of people, but I have never found that it makes me particularly happy.
I fondly remember good times working on 'Thor.'
I don't find myself so exercised by a desperation to be new.
Being Irish, I always had this love of words.
Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things.