Kenneth Branagh Quotes

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

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.

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.

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 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.

My definition of success is control.

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

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

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.

The ferocity of passion that is engendered by people when they don't like what you've done is really tremendous. It's intense.

The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

Adults are just children who earn money.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Aging is the diminishing of early fearlessness.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don’t feel in a kind of race or competition with him or anybody else, because that kind of reactive thing isn’t good, or isn’t useful for natural creative instincts

I wanted to have a place and a space, and a building, in which to create a season of work I am here because the idea of a theatrical home is very appealing to me

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.

I'm basically quite a cheerful person.

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

Truth is like most opinions - best unexpressed.

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.

Sometimes it comes out in what I call tricksy behavior. That's not always easy to deal with, but it's fascinating. The key thing is to make sure that somebody's tricks don't trip up somebody else.

I'm just a foul-mouthed Brit.

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.

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.

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.

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

Being Irish, I always had this love of words.