Quotes from Kenneth Branagh

I live in the English countryside, so I'm surrounded by magpies.

I certainly have been guilty of trying to sweep things under the carpet.

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

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

I'm always interested in contemporary fiction.

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

The director needs to be in command on set because everything crumbles if that's not the case.

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.

What I've found about 'Cinderella' is that what it provokes in an audience is really extraordinary. It appears to be a deceptively simple tale, but I've heard nothing but people drawing all different things out of it.

I think that Shakespeare himself raided fairy tales and chronicle writers, and he always looked to people who worked in the mythic genres, whether it was folk tales or popular novels.

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.

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

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

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.

Carrying a movie is both a great privilege, it's a great opportunity, but it can be a great pressure, and sometimes that can make people behave very oddly.

What you want is the opportunity to work and an audience. Prizes after that are just a great big bonus.

I saw Derek Jacobi play Hamlet when I was 17, and he directed me as Hamlet when I was 27, and I directed him as Claudius in 'Hamlet' when I was 35, and I'm hoping we meet again in some other production of Hamlet before we both toddle off.

The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary.

I think that music is crucially important in Shakespeare - and, clearly, was an important part of the Elizabethan theatre. And, it's always been something that was a profound element of the experience of Shakespeare that I have been drawn to - and interpreters have, as well.

Do you know what I feel about Dr. Who's? I feel the same way as I do about the Bonds. I love them all. I love them all! I don't have favorites.

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

My definition of success is control.

To look out of a car in Scania, you see a painting on the horizontal - one windmill, one tiny farmhouse, acres of beet or grass.

I do think that, for instance, we've been very lucky to have theatrical careers and be associated with Shakespeare which sometimes gives you a kind of bogus kudos.