Kenneth Branagh, in full Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh, (born December 10, 1960, Belfast, Northern Ireland), Irish-born English actor, director, and writer who is best known for his film adaptations of Shakespearean plays.
At age nine Branagh moved with his family from Northern Ireland to London. He began actingin school plays and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1981. Six weeks later he made his professional stage debut. In 1984 he joined the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), where he received acclaim for his performances in Hamlet and Henry V. Often compared to Laurence Olivier (whom he would later portray), Branagh was noted for his magnetic and often whimsical performances. In 1987 he left the RSC to cofound the Renaissance Theatre Company, for which he served as actor, writer, and director.
In 1989 Branagh brought Henry V to the screen. The movie received critical acclaim, and Branagh was nominated for an Academy Award for best director and another for best actor. Emma Thompson, whom Branagh married in 1989, costarred. The two appeared together in many film and stage productions until their divorce in 1995.
Credited with making Shakespeare accessible to the masses, Branagh also acted in and directed In the Bleak Midwinter (1995; U.S. title A Midwinter’s Tale), about a production of Hamlet staged in a local church, as well as film versions of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000). In 1995 he appeared as Iago in the film Othello, and in 2006 he directed the film As You Like It. He also directed and acted in the motion pictures Dead Again (1991) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994
Early in his career Branagh appeared in several television productions, including The Lady’s Not for Burning (1987) and Look Back in Anger (1989), both movies adapted from plays, and the miniseries Fortunes of War (1987), based on novels by Olivia Manning. He subsequently starred as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton in the miniseries Shackleton (2002) and as Franklin D. Rooseveltin the miniseries Warm Springs (2005). In the crime series Wallander (2008–16), which adapted the work of novelist Henning Mankell, Branagh played the title role.
Branagh’s later film roles included supporting turns in Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), a film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s popular children’s book. His appearance as Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011), which dramatized events behind the scenes of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. During this time Branagh continued to direct, and his credits included Sleuth (2007), a remake of the 1972 film about a mystery author who gets revenge on his wife’s younger lover, and Thor (2011), an adaptation of a comic book about the eponymous Norse god. In 2014 he helmed the action thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, in which he also appeared as a vicious Russian banker.
Branagh later directed Cinderella (2015), an adaptation of the classic fairy tale. In 2017 he portrayed a British naval commander in the World War II drama Dunkirk, about the evacuationof Allied troops from France. That same year he directed and starred as the renowned detective Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express, based on Agatha Christie’s 1933 novel. He then directed and starred in All Is True (2018), which centres on Shakespeare’s final years.
Branagh wrote several books about the making of his films, and his autobiography, Beginning, was published in 1989. He was knighted in 2012.
AWARDS:
Winner of the Golden Berlin Bear, Emmy Award, BAFTA, BIFA, European Film Award etc.
Winner of the Golden Berlin Bear, Emmy Award, BAFTA, BIFA, European Film Award etc.
Nominee of the Academy Award, Palme d'Or, Golden Globe, Film Independent Spirit Award, Satellite Award, Goya Award etc.
