Kenneth Branagh Quotes

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

• The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

• My definition of success is control.

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

• If it’s good art, it’s good.

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

• 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.

  Kenneth Branagh

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

  Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh (26)

Birth:	10th December, 1960
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Actor, Director

Related Authors

• Peter Greene
• Laurence Olivier
• Goran Visnjic
• Paul Reubens
• Joey McIntyre
• Omar Sharif
• Toshiro Mifune
• Patrick Dempsey
• Richard Gere
• Brandon Routh

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 17th November

Births

• 1974 - Leslie Bibb
• 1978 - Rachel McAdams
• 1922 - Stanley Cohen
• 1868 - Paul Hirsch
• 1944 - Lorne Michaels

Deaths

• 1968 - Mervyn Peake
• 1990 - Robert Hofstadter
• 1988 - Sheilah Graham
• 1983 - Raymond Aron
• 2002 - Abba Eban