Quotes from Kenneth Branagh

I'm just a normal working class boy from Belfast.

I'm involved in Northern Ireland Screen and have been for a long time, so I keep my eyes open and ears to the ground.

It's funny to be in rooms where you were originally referred to as 'The Shakespeare Guy' and to suddenly be in the position where you're 'The Blockbuster Guy.' That's a pretty unusual turnabout, I must say.

I only really cast people who are desperate to be in it - who were dying to be in it, whose talent I believed in and were dead ready to do the work that was necessary.

I had a friend who introduced me to a meditation practice which involves a couple of half-hours a day of meditation, where essentially you try to achieve a stillness that allows you to just be there in the moment.

I did not make this a long film for its own sake. I wanted to make an entertaining film and offer it out there for those who want to see it. If word of mouth suggests there is an audience out there, hopefully their cinema will show it.

The glory of 70mm is the sharpness of the image it offers.

At the end of every stage performance, the audience all applaud me for doing my job, but I have friends who work in offices who don't get that.

I'm by no means an opera buff.

In any given project, there are a few moments where there is the usual disappointment, as it were, when you look in the mirror, and you realize you're not 23 and looking like Brad Pitt.

In Northern Ireland, I truly, effortlessly, knew who I was. I knew where I belonged. I felt completely and utterly secure.

There are some amazing stories from all over this country, where people's work and contribution has been acknowledged. To be part of that is an absolutely fantastic feeling.

My parents are the reason I wanted to make Shakespeare available to ordinary people.

I don't know that the Brits have the monopoly on being organized, but they do have a way of working with which I'm familiar. It's not necessarily the best way, but it's a way.

I think that short films often contain an originality, a creative freedom, an energy and an invention that is inspiring and entertaining. I think they are, as Shakespeare put it, a good deed in a naughty world.

Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp. What works in one doesn't work in the other, and you have to be looking for the truth of the performance, whatever way that medium might demand.

'Thor' has got several big battles in it, a reckless, headstrong young hero who has to confront his past and deal with a complicated relationship with his father, it has lots of savage Europeans hacking each other to death at various points, and all of this sounded very much like 'Henry V.'

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

I've heard from quite a few people, you sense that there is an ownership of the [ Cinderella], it was so personal for so many people, so I was interested in trying to work out why that was.

I wanted to have a place and a space, and a building, in which to create a season of work I am here because the idea of a theatrical home is very appealing to me

I was studying at the Royal Academy of Arts, and I was playing the role of Dr. Ivan Chebutikin in Chekov's 'Three Sisters.' I was about 50 years too young for the part.

We're self obsessed and mad and stupid - not that other people can't be the same way - but the extremes are kind of honest in some mad way. Anyway, I like them.

Certainly, I'm excited by epic subjects. It doesn't particularly frighten me.

A creative and artistic home is what I've been looking for in the theatre.