Top 66 Kenneth Branagh Quotes

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 love thrillers, and I always have.

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

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 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.

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

I fondly remember good times working on ‘Thor.’

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

Life is surreal and beautiful.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You can’t live in nostalgia-land.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

‘Jack Ryan’ is a very fast-paced, very contemporary, very action-driven thriller.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 did ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ in the theater and found it to be riotously funny.

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

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

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.

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 basically quite a cheerful person.

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.’

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

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

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

There’s always something to think about in terms of problems that are dark and important and immediate and scary.

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.

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

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

I’m always interested in contemporary fiction.

I am very much looking forward to new adventures – including, I hope, Broadway – sooner rather than later.

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

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

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.

I’m interested in creating new work.

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

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.

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