110+ Kenneth Branagh Quotes On Shakespeare, Marriage And Belfast

Kenneth Branagh is an Irish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Hamlet (1996). He has also directed several Hollywood films, such as Thor (2011) and Cinderella (2015). Following is our collection on famous quotes by Kenneth Branagh on life, love, shakespeare.

Top 10 Kenneth Branagh Quotes

1. Friendship is one of the most tangible things in a world which offers fewer and fewer supports.
2. Hamlet and Victor Frankenstein are each obsessed with death. Hamlet's whole story is a philosophical preparation for death; Victor's is an intellectual refusal to accept it.
3. 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.
4. My definition of success is control.
5. The glory of 70mm is the sharpness of the image it offers.
6. 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.
7. I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.
8. The ferocity of passion that is engendered by people when they don't like what you've done is really tremendous. It's intense.
9. The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.
• If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.
• Aging is the diminishing of early fearlessness.
• I certainly have been guilty of trying to sweep things under the carpet.
• I was a big admirer of F.D.R. He saved Britain.
• I went to a comprehensive school and didn't go to university.
• 'The Painkiller' is a remarkable play.
• A brother who is unhappy is a dangerous relative to have.
• I read the final Wallander novel, 'The Troubled Man,' not long after it was published.
• I am a long-time hide-behind-the-sofa-in-the-early-Doctor Who-in-the-1960s fan.

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About Life

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. — 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 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.' — Kenneth Branagh

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

Life is about making plans from which you deviate, almost always. If you are lucky, you do come up with a plan. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Life is surreal and beautiful. — Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About Love

When you cast someone like Natalie Portman, the character can't just be the love interest. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Being Irish, I always had this love of words. — Kenneth Branagh

I've always loved the Bond films. — Kenneth Branagh

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

I loved 'Kundun.' — Kenneth Branagh

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

I did 'Love's Labour's Lost' in the theater and found it to be riotously funny. — Kenneth Branagh

I love thrillers, and I always have. — Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About Shakespeare

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

One of the problems with Shakespeare is that you can never give him a ring. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Shakespeare is rhythmic; he is musical in the sense that he likes poetry, and he's musical because he constantly refers to settings where there's singing and dancing. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About People

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

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

For all the cynicism that the world contains, people are a little more open to those things that maybe are to do with returning you to some kind of simpler, happier state. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Even if people are all from the same place, there can be very, very different approaches. It's one of the things I'm fascinated by. It's why I like directing. I like to see how different people approach trying to be truthful, on camera or in the theater, and whether you can make them match up. — Kenneth Branagh

I've heard from quite a few people, you sense that there is an ownership of the [ Cinderella], it was so personal for so many people, so I was interested in trying to work out why that was. — Kenneth Branagh

It doesn't mean old or younger. I've learned a lot from people much younger than me as well as people much older than me. So I think it's about honesty and generosity. — Kenneth Branagh

I went to Moscow and met some slightly powerful and scary people. — Kenneth Branagh

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

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About Work

What you want is the opportunity to work and an audience. Prizes after that are just a great big bonus. — Kenneth Branagh

At the end of every stage performance, the audience all applaud me for doing my job, but I have friends who work in offices who don't get that. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

My experience of great storytelling, working with classics, is just finding a way to present it simply but let the story do its own work, or be an invite to the audience's imagination. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

I fondly remember good times working on 'Thor.' — Kenneth Branagh

I'm interested in creating new work. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh Quotes About Actors

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — 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

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

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 would say my voice is actor-neutral. — Kenneth Branagh

I did not expect to be allowed to be an actor, to be allowed to eventually direct things. — Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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

Actually I think 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' could sit very very perfectly in the middle of a Disney world I think. — Kenneth Branagh

As soon as someone I don’t respect tells me I can’t do something, it just makes me want to do it even more. — Kenneth Branagh

It's no accident that Cinderella has been in the culture for thousands of years, and in cross cultures. I've traveled a bit recently, and in Russia, they completely believe they own this tale. And in Italy, they feel it absolutely is part of who they are. There is a timeless web to it. — Kenneth Branagh

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?' — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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

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

You can't live in nostalgia-land. — Kenneth Branagh

After Frankenstein, I feel as if I want to make a film about somebody having a nice cup of tea. — Kenneth Branagh

Adults are just children who earn money. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

I don't find myself so exercised by a desperation to be new. — Kenneth Branagh

Even when a film is finished, when I direct a film, sometimes it's a dark profession, but it requires a peculiar form of courage that I admire. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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? — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

I think television goes through phases, like other creative arts, where suddenly a group of people are producing exciting work all at once. — Kenneth Branagh

I think that a lot of exciting elements are finding a place where a film is happily, truly about something. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Frankenstein feels like an ancient tale, the kind of traditional story that appears in many other forms. It appeals to something very primal, but it's also about profound things, the very nature of life and death and birth - about, essentially, a man who is resisting the most irresistible fact of all, that we will be shuffling off this mortal coil. — Kenneth Branagh

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

I'm always interested in contemporary fiction. — Kenneth Branagh

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

I'm by no means an opera buff. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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. — Kenneth Branagh

I think the truth is the Marvel fiefdom exists very independently inside the Disney world, inside the Disney universe. They're not resistant to that kind of thing but they have their, you know there is a whole sort of machine energy and momentum that is the sort of creative drive behind the whole universe that has a big impact on the individual films. I'm glad those scenes got out there. And we've got a few interesting deleted scenes on this. — Kenneth Branagh

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

I'm just a foul-mouthed Brit. — Kenneth Branagh

Somehow I know there was something so right about my doing Frankenstein and taking so long over it that I've probably been laying some ghost inside myself. It was a very necessary job for me to do, but it'll take some time to recover from it. — Kenneth Branagh

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

There's always something to think about in terms of problems that are dark and important and immediate and scary. — Kenneth Branagh

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.' — Kenneth Branagh

Helena Bonham-Carter and I sat down to talk about [Cinderella movie] and she said, 'I really want to do it but only one thing I insist on and that's wings.' She had to have wings and [costume designer] Sandy Powell didn't want wings to begin with but had to be talked around, but that was fun. — Kenneth Branagh

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

'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.' — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Certainly, I'm excited by epic subjects. It doesn't particularly frighten me. — Kenneth Branagh

When I'm acting, I'm in the director's hands. I'm very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I'm doing. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

I guess I've done a couple of boys-y movies and on the whole you get bracketed into things you've just done, so it was an imaginative surprise from my Disney family to pull me out of the hat, as it were in Cinderella. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

If you've been to Moscow, it's a really exciting and great city, but it still feels like you should be a little careful about which way you're going to step. — Kenneth Branagh

Even in the case of a god, audiences - paradoxically - enjoy recognizing the human traits. — Kenneth Branagh

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. — Kenneth Branagh

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

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

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

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. — Kenneth Branagh

Don’t stand up when you can sit down and don’t sit down when you can lie down. — Kenneth Branagh

Life Lessons by Kenneth Branagh

1. Kenneth Branagh has taught us that hard work and dedication can lead to great success. He worked his way up from humble beginnings to become one of the most celebrated actors and directors of our time.
2. He has also demonstrated the importance of staying true to yourself and your craft, no matter the obstacles. His commitment to the art of storytelling has seen him create some of the most iconic films of our generation.
3. Finally, he has shown us that it is possible to achieve success without compromising your integrity. He has remained humble and generous throughout his career, and has used his platform to help others.