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.

Kenneth Branagh

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

Kenneth Branagh

support friendship world

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

Kenneth Branagh

poet hands way

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.

Kenneth Branagh

unique personality character

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.

Kenneth Branagh

philosophical preparation intellectual

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

Kenneth Branagh

quality actors thinking

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.

Kenneth Branagh

honesty mean thinking

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.

Kenneth Branagh

fire mean way

I come from the theatre, my bones are in the theatre; it’s as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre

Kenneth Branagh

breathing theatre want

My definition of success is control.

Kenneth Branagh

definition-of-success definitions success

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.

Kenneth Branagh

mysterious-things actors goes-on

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

Kenneth Branagh

mad figures thinking

The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

Kenneth Branagh

elasticity extraordinary

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.

Kenneth Branagh

important directors people

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

Kenneth Branagh

down-and lying

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

Kenneth Branagh

mean-people mean people

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.

Kenneth Branagh

littles people world

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.

Kenneth Branagh

acting directors hands

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

Kenneth Branagh

insecure people thinking

Adults are just children who earn money.

Kenneth Branagh

adults family children

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

Kenneth Branagh

contradictory accepting people