Kenneth Branagh

Mozart had a tremendously fertile and creative ear for a catchy tune.

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.

Being Irish, I always had this love of words.

Friendship is one of the most tangible things in a world which offers fewer and fewer supports.

My definition of success is control.

Life is surreal and beautiful.

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've lived a lot of my life in London, so I often feel that I am a Londoner.

A creative and artistic home is what I've been looking for in the theatre.

In Northern Ireland, I truly, effortlessly, knew who I was. I knew where I belonged. I felt completely and utterly secure.

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.

So many plays with magic in them that would be a terrific invitation to an imaginative animation team.

You can't live in nostalgia-land.

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'm interested in creating new work.

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 did not expect to be allowed to be an actor, to be allowed to eventually direct things.

Shakespeare's always on my dance card if it can be.

The best actors, I think, have a childlike quality. They have a sort of an ability to lose themselves. There's still some silliness.

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.

I'm by no means an opera buff.

I'm a devotee of Stephen Sondheim. I think he's a genius.

A brother who is unhappy is a dangerous relative to have.

It's very strange that the people you love are often the people you're most cruel to.

The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

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.

I think we love the escapism of something like 'Cinderella,' and I think we do with 'Thor.'

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.

If it's good art, it's good.

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.

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.

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.

The director needs to be in command on set because everything crumbles if that's not the case.

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 love thrillers, and I always have.

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.

Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things.

I only got 'War and Peace' on the third attempt.

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.

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.

My parents are the reason I wanted to make Shakespeare available to ordinary people.

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.'

I did 'Celebrity' by Woody Allen. I did 'The Gingerbread Man' with Robert Altman. These were big talents.

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.

The BAFTA is both absolutely fantastic and sort of meaningless at the same time.

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.

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.

It's quite hard for people to just accept that they're very contradictory.

I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.

I'm just a normal working class boy from Belfast.

The glory of 70mm is the sharpness of the image it offers.

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.

The Chinese say, 'It's good to live in interesting times.'

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?

In the case of 'Jack Ryan,' it was a huge collaboration, and I enjoyed it very much, and most of all, I want the audience to enjoy it, too. I want them to feel immersed in this world.

I live in the English countryside, so I'm surrounded by magpies.

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.

'Frankenstein' feels like an ancient tale, the kind of traditional story that appears in many other forms.

I've always loved pure, silly slapstick comedy. It always makes me laugh.

'The Painkiller' is a remarkable play.

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.

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.

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.

I was a big admirer of F.D.R. He saved Britain.

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 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.

I suppose that was my first bit of acting, the acquisition of an English accent. It was really just an attempt to be understood.

I've always loved the Bond films.

I fondly remember good times working on 'Thor.'

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

I think in the wake of the domination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everyone is now looking for a grand plan.

In the course of my lifetime, that world went from violence to a kind of peace.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.'

I liked the fact that 'My Week With Marilyn' wasn't a biopic.

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 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 went to Moscow and met some slightly powerful and scary people.

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?'

I'm always interested in contemporary fiction.

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.

I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure.

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 come from the theatre; my bones are in the theatre. It's as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre.

I would say my voice is actor-neutral.

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 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'm basically quite a cheerful person.

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.

I went to a comprehensive school and didn't go to university.

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 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.

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.

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 certainly have been guilty of trying to sweep things under the carpet.

A lot of the films I've done have links to other movies that I've directed in the past.

What happens is that with difficult processes on a film, they get very intensely compressed because a clock is ticking.