197 Quotes by Kenneth Branagh

My dad, for the first 15 years of my career, on every visit he made to a play or a film set, would find the oldest person on set and say, 'Do you think my son has a future?'

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.

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.

Probably 90 percent of the stuff I make has inevitably been done before... Whether it's playing Hamlet, which has been on the go for 400 years, or pieces from the cinematic world that also have been essayed before, I feel released by that.

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

Shakespeare is rhythmic; he is musical in the sense that he likes poetry, and he's musical because he constantly refers to settings where there's singing and dancing.

Being Irish, I always had this love of words.

Sir Derek Jacobi has been an inspiration to so many actors and audiences throughout his brilliant career. To see him in Shakespeare is an event in itself.

I don't find myself so exercised by a desperation to be new.