Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh Biography

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh ( ; born 10 December 1960) is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He has directed or starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V (1989) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).

He has also starred in numerous other films and television series including Fortunes of War (1987), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Conspiracy (TV) (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Warm Springs (TV) (2005), Valkyrie (2008), Wallander (TV series) (2008"present), and My Week with Marilyn (2011) as Laurence Olivier (Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor); and directed such notable films as Dead Again (1991) (also starring), Swan Song (1992) (Academy Award nominated for Best Live Action Short Film), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) (also starring), The Magic Flute (2006), Sleuth (2007), and the blockbuster superhero film Thor (2011).

Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards, five Golden Globes, and has won an Emmy and three BAFTAs. He was appointed a knight bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours and was knighted on 9 November 2012.

Early life

Branagh, the middle of three children, was born and raised in Belfast, the son of working-class Protestant parents Frances (née Harper) and William Branagh, a plumber and joiner who ran a company that specialised in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings. At the age of nine, he relocated with his family to Reading, Berkshire, to escape the Troubles. He was educated at Grove Primary School, Whiteknights Primary School, then Meadway School, Tilehurst, where he appeared in school productions such as Toad of Toad Hall" and Oh, What a Lovely War!. At school, he acquired an English accent to avoid bullying. On his identity today he has said, "I feel Irish. I don't think you can take Belfast out of the boy," and he attributes his "love of words" to his Irish heritage. He is known to have attended the (Amateur) Reading Cine & Video Society (now called Reading Film & Video Makers) as a member and was a keen member of Progress Theatre for whom he is now the patron.

Branagh went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Career

Stage work

Branagh achieved some early measure of success in his native Northern Ireland for his role as the title character in the BBC's Play for Today trilogy known as the Billy Plays (1982"84), written by Graham Reid and set in Belfast.

He received acclaim in the UK for his stage performances, first winning the 1982 SWET Award for Best Newcomer, for his role as Judd in Julian Mitchell's Another Country, immediately after leaving RADA. Branagh was part of the 'new wave' of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Bruce Payne and Fiona Shaw. In 1984 he appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Henry V, directed by Adrian Noble. The production played to full houses, especially at the Barbican in London. It was this production that he adapted for the film version of the play in 1989. He and David Parfitt founded the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987, following success with several productions on the London 'Fringe', including Branagh's full-scale production of Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Studio, co-starring with Samantha Bond. The first major Renaissance production was Branagh's Christmas 1987 staging of Twelfth Night at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, starring Richard Briers as Malvolio and Frances Barber as Viola, and with an original score by actor, musician and composer Patrick Doyle, who two years later was to compose the music for Branagh's film adaptation of Henry V. This Twelfth Night was later adapted for television.

Branagh became a major presence in the media and on the British stage when Renaissance collaborated with Birmingham Rep for a 1988 touring season of three Shakespeare plays under the umbrella title of Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, which also played a repertory season at the Phoenix Theatre in London. It featured directorial debuts for Judi Dench with Much Ado About Nothing (starring Branagh and Samantha Bond as Benedick and Beatrice), Geraldine McEwan with As You Like It, and Derek Jacobi directing Branagh in the title role in Hamlet, with Sophie Thompson as Ophelia. Critic Milton Shulman of the London Evening So mention but three famous actors who have essayed the role. On the negative side, he has not got the magnetism of Olivier, nor the mellifluous voice quality of Gielgud nor the intelligence of Guinness."

A year later in 1989 Branagh co-starred with Emma Thompson in the Renaissance revival of Look Back in Anger. Judi Dench directed both the theatre and television productions, presented first in Belfast then at the London Coliseum and Lyric Theatre.

In 2002, Branagh starred at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield as Richard III. In 2003 he starred in the Royal National Theatre's production of David Mamet's Edmond. Branagh directed The Play What I Wrote in England in 2001 and directed a Broadway production in 2003. From September to November 2008, Branagh appeared at Wyndham's Theatre as the title character in the Donmar West End revival of Anton Chekhov's Ivanov in a new version by Tom Stoppard. His performance was lauded as the "performance of the year" by several critics. It won him the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Male Performance but did not get him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, to the surprise of critics.

In July 2013 he co-directed Macbeth at Manchester International Festival with Rob Ashford. Alex Kingston played Lady Macbeth and Ray Fearon featured as Macduff. The final performance was broadcast to cinemas on 20 July as part of National Theatre Live.

Film work

Branagh is known for his film adaptations of William Shakespeare, beginning with Henry V (1989), followed by Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000) and As You Like It (2006). As You Like It premiered in theatres in Europe, but was sent directly to television in the U.S., where it aired on HBO in August 2007. He was rumored to have been under consideration for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels.

Notable non-Shakespeare films in which Branagh has appeared include Dead Again (1991) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), both of which he also directed, Wild Wild West (1999), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and Valkyrie (2008). He starred as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He also played the Minister, Dormandy, (a parody of PMG Tony Benn) in the film The Boat That Rocked (2009).

From 1989 to 1996, Branagh mostly directed his own films, but the commercial and critical failure of Love's Labour's Lost ended his directorial career for a time. In 2006, the same year that Branagh's film version of As You Like It was released, he also directed a film version of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, which has yet to be released in the U.S., where it has not even been shown on cable television or released on a Region 1 DVD. Branagh has also directed the thriller Sleuth (2007), a remake of the 1972 film. At a film promotion for Valkyrie in 2008, Branagh confirmed that he would be directing Thor, a film based on the Marvel superhero. Thor, Branagh's return to big-budget directing, released on 6 May 2011. In 2011, Branagh portrayed Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn.

Television

Branagh has also been involved in several made-for-TV films. Among his most acclaimed portrayals is that of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the film Warm Springs (2005), for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Though the film received 16 Emmy nominations, winning five (including Best Made-For-Television Film), Branagh did not win the award for his portrayal. He did, though, receive an Emmy for his portrayal of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the TV film Conspiracy (2001), a depiction of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials decided on the Final Solution. In 2002 Branagh starred in the two-part television movie Shackleton, a dramatization of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's battle for survival, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award and an Emmy. Branagh also narrated the BBC documentaries Walking with Dinosaurs, World War 1 in Colour, Walking with Beasts and Walking with Monsters, and the BBC miniseries Great Composers.

Branagh is the star of the English-language Wallander television series, adaptations of Henning Mankell's best-selling Wallander crime novels. Branagh plays the eponymous Inspector Kurt Wallander and also serves as the executive producer of the series. The first series of three episodes were broadcast on BBC One in November and December 2008. Branagh won the award for best actor at the 35th Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards (2009). It was his first major television award win in the UK. He received his first BAFTA TV on 26 April 2009 for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. For his performance in the episode One Step Behind, he was nominated in the Outstanding Actor, Miniseries or Movie category of the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards. The role also gained him a nomination for Best Actor at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. The second Wallander series of three episodes aired initially in January 2010 on the BBC, and the third season aired in July 2012.

Radio

Branagh has also played the title role in BBC radio broadcasts of Hamlet and Cyrano de Bergerac, and the role of Edmund in King Lear.

Other work

Branagh has narrated several audio books, such as The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis.

Branagh participated in the London 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony portraying Isambard Kingdom Brunel during the Industrial Revolution segment, giving the speech from The Tempest originally read by the character Caliban.

Personal life

Branagh was married from 20 August 1989 until 1995 to actress Emma Thompson, with whom he starred in Fortunes of War among other projects. After their divorce, he was in a well-publicised relationship for several years with actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he directed and starred with in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In 2003, he married film art director Lindsay Brunnock, whom he met during the shooting of Shackleton.

He is a lifelong supporter of Belfast football team Linfield, as well as Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers.

Honours

Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards, the first man to be nominated for five different categories. His first two nominations were for Henry V (one each for directing and acting). He also received similar BAFTA Award nominations for his film work, winning one for his direction. His first BAFTA TV award came in April 2009, for Best Drama Series (Wallander). Branagh's two other Academy Award nominations were for the 1992 film short subject Swan Song and for his work on the screenplay of Hamlet in 1996. His most recent is for his portrayal of Lord Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn. Branagh has co-starred several times with actress Emma Thompson, to whom he was married from 1989 to 1995. They appeared together in Look Back in Anger, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Dead Again, and Peter's Friends. More recently, they both appeared in The Boat That Rocked, though with no shared scenes.

He is Honorary President of NICVA (the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action). He received an honorary Doctorate in Literature from Queen's University of Belfast in 1990. He is also a patron for the charity Over The Wall.

In 1994, Branagh declined an appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Branagh was the youngest actor to receive the Golden Quill (also known as the Gielgud Award) in 2000. In 2001 he was appointed an honorary Doctor of Literarure at the Shakespeare Institute of The University of Birmingham; the Shakespeare Institute Library keeps the archive of his Renaissance Theatre Company and Renaissance Films.

Alongside Roberto Benigni, he is one of only two non-American actors to be nominated for Oscars for acting, writing, and directing, and one of eight actors to have achieved this honour. The other six are Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, George Clooney, John Huston and John Cassavetes.

On 10 July 2009, Branagh was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the RomaFictionFest.

He was appointed a knight bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama and to the community in Northern Ireland. He received the accolade at Buckingham Palace on 9 November 2012; afterwards, Branagh told a BBC reporter that he was "humble, elated, and incredibly lucky" to be knighted.

Filmography

Year	Film/TV Show	Role	Notes
1981	Chariots of Fire	Cambridge student	Uncredited
1982	Play for Tomorrow	Student	TV Show Episode: Easter 2016
1982	Play for Today	Billy Martin	TV Show 3 episodes
1983	To the Lighthouse	Student	Telemovie
1983	Maybury	Robert Clyde Moffat	TV Show 2 episodes
1984	Boy in the Bush	Jack Grant	Mini-series
1985	Coming Through	D.H. Lawrence	Telemovie
1987	The Lady's Not for Burning	Thomas Mendip
	Lorna	Billy
	Theatre Night	Oswald	TV Show Episode: Ghosts
	Fortunes of War	Guy Pringle	TV Show: 7 episodes
	A Month in the Country	James Moon
	High Season	Rick
1988	Thompson	Various roles	TV Show 6 episodes
1988	American Playhouse	Gordan Evans	TV Show Episode: Strange Interlude
1989	Look Back in Anger	Jimmy Porter	Telemovie
1989	Henry V	Henry V
1991	Dead Again	Mike Church/Roman Strauss
1992	Peter's Friends	Andrew Benson
1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Benedick
1993	Swing Kids	Herr Knopp, Gestapo	Uncredited
1994	Frankenstein	Dr Victor Frankenstein
1995	Performance	Donal Davoren	TV Show Episode: Shadow of a Gunman
	In the Bleak Midwinter
	Othello	Iago
1996	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
1998	The Gingerbread Man	Rick Magruder
	The Theory of Flight	Richard
	Celebrity	Lee Simon
	The Proposition	Father Michael McKinnon
	The Dance of Shiva	Colonel Evans	Short film
1999	Alien Love Triangle	Steven Chesterman	Short film
1999	Wild Wild West	Dr. Arliss Loveless
2000	Love's Labour's Lost	Berowne
	The Road to El Dorado	Miguel	Voice Animated film
	How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog	Peter McGowen
	The Periwig-Maker	The Periwig-Maker	Voice Animated short
2001	Conspiracy	Reinhard Heydrich	Telemovie
2001	Schneider's 2nd Stage	Joseph Barnett	Short film
2002	Rabbit Proof Fence	A.O. Neville
	Shackleton	Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton	Telemovie
	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	Professor Gilderoy Lockhart
2003	Listening
2004	Five Children & It	Uncle Albert
2005	Warm Springs	Franklin D. Roosevelt	Telemovie
2006	The American Experience	Narrator	TV documentary Episode: The Man Behind Hitler
	The Magic Flute
	As You Like It
2007	Sleuth	Man on TV	Uncredited cameo
2008	Valkyrie	Major-General Henning von Tresckow
2008	10 Days to War	Colonel Tim Collins	TV Show Episode: Our Business Is North
2008"present	Wallander	Kurt Wallander	TV Show 9 episodes
2009	The Boat That Rocked	Sir Alistair Dormandy
2011	A Poem is...	Narrator	TV Show
	Prodigal	Mark Snow	Short film
	Thor
	My Week with Marilyn	Laurence Olivier
2012	Stars in Shorts	Mark Snow
2013	Jack Ryan: Shadow One	Viktor Cherevin
2015	Cinderella

Narrator

Year	Title	Notes
1995	Anne Frank Remembered	Documentary
1996	Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood	Six-part TV special
1997	Great Composers	TV mini series
1998	Cold War	TV series
1999	The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs	TV series
1999	Walking with Dinosaurs	TV series
2001	The Science of Walking with Beasts	Two-part TV special
	The Ballad of Big Al	TV special
	Walking with Beasts	TV series
2002	The Tramp and the Dictator	Documentary
2005	Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs	TV series
	Goebbels-Experiment, Das	Documentary
	IMAX: Galapagos	Documentary
	World War 1 in Colour	Documentary

Awards and nominations

Award	Year	Project	Category
Academy Awards	1989	Henry V	Best Actor
	1989	Henry V	Best Director
	1992	Swan Song	Best Live Action Short Film
	1996	Hamlet	Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor
BAFTA Awards	1987	Fortunes of War	Best Actor " Television
	1989	Henry V	Best Actor in a Leading Role " Film
	1989	Henry V	Best Direction " Film
	2001	Conspiracy	Best Actor " Television
	2001	Shackleton	Best Actor " Television
	2008	Wallander	Best Drama Series " Television
	2009	Wallander	Best Actor " Television
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Actor in a Supporting Role " Film
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor
Broadcasting Press Guild	2008	Wallander	Best Actor
Cannes Film Festival	1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Palme d'Or
Capri Award	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Ensemble Cast
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	1989	Henry V	Best Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	1996	Hamlet	Best Actor
Detroit Film Critics Society	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor
Emmy Awards	2001	Conspiracy	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
	2002	Shackleton	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
	2005	Warm Springs	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
	2009	Wallander	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
European Film Awards	1990	Henry V	European Actor of the Year
			Best Director
			Young European Film of the Year
Golden Globe Awards	1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Best Motion Picture " Musical or Comedy
	2001	Conspiracy	Best Actor " Miniseries or Television Film
	2005	Warm Springs	Best Actor " Miniseries or Television Film
	2009	Wallander	Best Actor " Miniseries or Television Film
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture
Golden Raspberry Award	1999	Wild Wild West	Worst Supporting Actor
Independent Spirit Awards	1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Best Film
London Film Critics' Circle	1993	Much Ado About Nothing	British Producer of the Year
	2002	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	British Supporting Actor of the Year
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Supporting Actor of the Year
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor
San Diego Film Critics Society Award	1996	Hamlet	Best Actor
Sant Jordi Award	1989	Henry V	Best Foreign Actor
Satellite Awards	2005	Warm Springs	Best Actor " Miniseries or Television Film
	2009	Wallander	Best Actor " Miniseries or Television Film
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture
Saturn Awards	1994	Frankenstein	Best Actor
Screen Actors Guild Awards	1995	Othello	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
	2005	Warm Springs	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award	2011	My Week with Marilyn	Best Supporting Actor

Discography and audiobooks

Shakespeare's Richard III (complete) for Naxos Audiobooks
In the Ravine & Other Short Stories by Anton Chekhov (unabridged) for Naxos Audiobooks
Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (speaker) live recording for Sony Classical, conducted by Claudio Abbado
The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1660"1669 (abridged) for Hodder Headline Audio Classics
The Magician's Nephew by C.S Lewis for Harper Books
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 30" for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein [Abridged]
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for Audible.com.