Kenneth Branagh Quotes
Actor, Director
I come from the theatre; my bones are in the theatre. It's as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre.
A brother who is unhappy is a dangerous relative to have.
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?
Friendship is one of the most tangible things in a world which offers fewer and fewer supports.
One of the things that makes Hamlet unique among Shakespeare's characters is his courage to face up to the darker elements of his personality.
I am very much looking forward to new adventures - including, I hope, Broadway - sooner rather than later.
The Chinese say, 'It's good to live in interesting times.'
My definition of success is control.
I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.
Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things.
A creative and artistic home is what I've been looking for in the theatre.
It's funny to be in rooms where you were originally referred to as 'The Shakespeare Guy' and to suddenly be in the position where you're 'The Blockbuster Guy.' That's a pretty unusual turnabout, I must say.
Actors are the best and the worst of people. They're like kids. When they're good, they're very very good. When they're bad they're very very naughty.
I don't find myself so exercised by a desperation to be new.
Do you know what I feel about Dr. Who's? I feel the same way as I do about the Bonds. I love them all. I love them all! I don't have favorites.
Being Irish, I always had this love of words.
The BAFTA is both absolutely fantastic and sort of meaningless at the same time.
'Thor' has got several big battles in it, a reckless, headstrong young hero who has to confront his past and deal with a complicated relationship with his father, it has lots of savage Europeans hacking each other to death at various points, and all of this sounded very much like 'Henry V.'
I'll tell you what I'm grateful for, and that's the clarity of understanding that the most important things in life are health, family and friends, and the time to spend on them.
I think that short films often contain an originality, a creative freedom, an energy and an invention that is inspiring and entertaining. I think they are, as Shakespeare put it, a good deed in a naughty world.
I live in the English countryside, so I'm surrounded by magpies.
The glory of 70mm is the sharpness of the image it offers.
I started being interested in acting when I heard the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. I've had the great privilege of working with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. These are people who inspire the work that I do.
I suppose, at 50, you value things in a different way. So you value connections, you value your friendships, you value your health, and you are much more aware of time passing.
The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.
I've lived a lot of my life in London, so I often feel that I am a Londoner.
Many of us live in dysfunctional families, and so even if it's in a fairy tale, or perhaps because it's in a fairy tale, we have a chance to look at that side of our reflected lives differently.
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.
I remember the first book I bought, when I was about 11... Dad said, 'What have you got that for? What are libraries for?'
I think I do have a way of predicting - not always accurately - what is a nerve-wracking day for actors, what may be a difficult scene or a difficult moment, how small - and it may be down to one line - a thing maybe that is upsetting or undermining a performance.
I'm basically quite a cheerful person.
I'm interested in creating new work.
I was stuck in a wheelchair playing this deranged villain. I felt this mass amount of rage at being so confined. I thought, 'What can I do that is the direct opposite of this situation?' The only thing I could think of was that I could sing and dance.
I think we love the escapism of something like 'Cinderella,' and I think we do with 'Thor.'
There are some amazing stories from all over this country, where people's work and contribution has been acknowledged. To be part of that is an absolutely fantastic feeling.
My dad, for the first 15 years of my career, on every visit he made to a play or a film set, would find the oldest person on set and say, 'Do you think my son has a future?'
'Frankenstein' feels like an ancient tale, the kind of traditional story that appears in many other forms.
I do think that, for instance, we've been very lucky to have theatrical careers and be associated with Shakespeare which sometimes gives you a kind of bogus kudos.
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.
Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp. What works in one doesn't work in the other, and you have to be looking for the truth of the performance, whatever way that medium might demand.
The best actors, I think, have a childlike quality. They have a sort of an ability to lose themselves. There's still some silliness.
Probably 90 percent of the stuff I make has inevitably been done before... Whether it's playing Hamlet, which has been on the go for 400 years, or pieces from the cinematic world that also have been essayed before, I feel released by that.
I did 'Love's Labour's Lost' in the theater and found it to be riotously funny.
I like to cast actors I admire, one's that are talented. Each one will bring something new to the part. This play has been done thousands of times and now certain characters are too familiar.
If it's good art, it's good.
I had a friend who introduced me to a meditation practice which involves a couple of half-hours a day of meditation, where essentially you try to achieve a stillness that allows you to just be there in the moment.
I don't know that there is too far, actually. I think there's only too bad. If it's bad you've gone too far.
The records - what little we know about Shakespeare, including the records of the plays in his playhouse - were often the story of how quickly they came off if they didn't work. They had to move on. They were absolutely led by box office.
I did not make this a long film for its own sake. I wanted to make an entertaining film and offer it out there for those who want to see it. If word of mouth suggests there is an audience out there, hopefully their cinema will show it.
I only really cast people who are desperate to be in it - who were dying to be in it, whose talent I believed in and were dead ready to do the work that was necessary.
There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them.
The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors.
We're self obsessed and mad and stupid - not that other people can't be the same way - but the extremes are kind of honest in some mad way. Anyway, I like them.
What I've found about 'Cinderella' is that what it provokes in an audience is really extraordinary. It appears to be a deceptively simple tale, but I've heard nothing but people drawing all different things out of it.
I love thrillers, and I always have.
So many plays with magic in them that would be a terrific invitation to an imaginative animation team.
It's very strange that the people you love are often the people you're most cruel to.
I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.
I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure.
Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.
I'm by no means an opera buff.
I have a pathetic urge at some stage in my life to be able to pull out my wallet and pull out a little card on which it would say, 'Kenneth Branagh, artistic director.'
In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.
It's quite hard for people to just accept that they're very contradictory.
My parents are the reason I wanted to make Shakespeare available to ordinary people.
If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.
I certainly have been guilty of trying to sweep things under the carpet.
I did not expect to be allowed to be an actor, to be allowed to eventually direct things.
I only got 'War and Peace' on the third attempt.
I think A Midsummer Night's Dream would be terrific because of the transformations that occur. Or The Tempest, things like that. Extraordinary larger than life or supernatural element.
I did 'Celebrity' by Woody Allen. I did 'The Gingerbread Man' with Robert Altman. These were big talents.
Mozart had a tremendously fertile and creative ear for a catchy tune.
The idea of accumulating ambitions or achievements didn't get much further than wanting to do the next exciting thing. I really haven't set out with any list of achievements.
For a nanosecond in the pre-Internet pre-digital age, I was a hot young actor, in the sense of popular, and then it passed.
I'm very conscious of the fact the directing career has taken some odd turns. Maybe there's enough bulk where I'm now pigeonholed in the 'eclectic box.'
'The Painkiller' is a remarkable play.
I'm involved in Northern Ireland Screen and have been for a long time, so I keep my eyes open and ears to the ground.
I think in the wake of the domination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everyone is now looking for a grand plan.
In Northern Ireland, I truly, effortlessly, knew who I was. I knew where I belonged. I felt completely and utterly secure.
I've always loved the Bond films.
I liked the fact that 'My Week With Marilyn' wasn't a biopic.
What happens is that with difficult processes on a film, they get very intensely compressed because a clock is ticking.
I think what you're always looking for as artists is to be honest and to continue to be honestly driven by that which you are passionately engaged with. It should need not be forced.
I am a long-time hide-behind-the-sofa-in-the-early-Doctor Who-in-the-1960s fan.
I was a big admirer of F.D.R. He saved Britain.
I fondly remember good times working on 'Thor.'
Life is surreal and beautiful.
Sir Derek Jacobi has been an inspiration to so many actors and audiences throughout his brilliant career. To see him in Shakespeare is an event in itself.
I was studying at the Royal Academy of Arts, and I was playing the role of Dr. Ivan Chebutikin in Chekov's 'Three Sisters.' I was about 50 years too young for the part.
I'm always interested in contemporary fiction.
I saw Derek Jacobi play Hamlet when I was 17, and he directed me as Hamlet when I was 27, and I directed him as Claudius in 'Hamlet' when I was 35, and I'm hoping we meet again in some other production of Hamlet before we both toddle off.
You can't live in nostalgia-land.
I went to a comprehensive school and didn't go to university.
I'm a devotee of Stephen Sondheim. I think he's a genius.
I think that Shakespeare himself raided fairy tales and chronicle writers, and he always looked to people who worked in the mythic genres, whether it was folk tales or popular novels.
Shakespeare's always on my dance card if it can be.
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'm just a normal working class boy from Belfast.
Carrying a movie is both a great privilege, it's a great opportunity, but it can be a great pressure, and sometimes that can make people behave very oddly.
I would say my voice is actor-neutral.