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
The Chinese say, 'It's good to live in interesting times.'
The director needs to be in command on set because everything crumbles if that's not the case.
There's always something to think about in terms of problems that are dark and important and immediate and scary.
To look out of a car in Scania, you see a painting on the horizontal - one windmill, one tiny farmhouse, acres of beet or grass.
What happens is that with difficult processes on a film, they get very intensely compressed because a clock is ticking.
What you want is the opportunity to work and an audience. Prizes after that are just a great big bonus.
When you cast someone like Natalie Portman, the character can't just be the love interest.
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 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 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.
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 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.
I don't know that the Brits have the monopoly on being organized, but they do have a way of working with which I'm familiar. It's not necessarily the best way, but it's a way.
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.