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.

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

The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

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

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

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.

My definition of success is control.

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.

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

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

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.

If it’s good art, it’s good.

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

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