Kenneth Branagh

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker.

Kenneth Charles Branagh was born in Belfast on 10 December 1960, the son of working-class Protestant parents Frances ( Harper) and William Branagh.

His father was a plumber and joiner who ran a company that specialised in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings.

He is the middle of three children, with an older brother and a younger sister, and lived in the Tigers Bay area of Belfast.

He was educated at Grove Primary School.

In early 1970, at the age of nine, Branagh moved with his family to England to escape the Troubles; they settled in Berkshire, where Branagh grew up in Reading and attended Whiteknights Primary School and Meadway School in Tilehurst.

He appeared in school productions such as Toad of Toad Hall and Oh, What a Lovely War!

At school, Branagh learned to speak with an RP accent to avoid bullying.

Discussing his identity, he later said, "I feel Irish. I don't think you can take Belfast out of the boy."

He also attributes his "love of words" to his Irish heritage.

He attended the amateur Reading Cine & Video Society (now called Reading Film & Video Makers) and was a keen member of Progress Theatre, of which he is now the patron.

After disappointing A-level results in English, history, and sociology, he went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

In 1980, RADA's principal Hugh Cruttwell asked Branagh to perform a soliloquy from Hamlet for Queen Elizabeth II during one of her visits to the academy.

Branagh's first film appearance was as an uncredited role as a Cambridge student in the sports drama Chariots of Fire (1981).

Branagh achieved early success in his native Northern Ireland for his role as Billy, 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, 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 sold-out audiences, especially at the Barbican in the City of London.

Branagh has starred in the BBC1 series Fortunes of War (1987), the Channel 4 series Shackleton (2002), and BBC One series Wallander (2008–2016).

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.

He has directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006).

He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director for Henry V, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamlet.

It was this production that he adapted for the film version of the play in 1989.

He directed Swan Song (1992), which earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

He also directed Peter's Friends (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Thor (2011), and Cinderella (2015).

For his semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021), he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, and won Best Original Screenplay.

He has also acted in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), and Valkyrie (2008).

He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and an International Emmy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the HBO film Conspiracy (2001).

He also received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for his role as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the television film Warm Springs (2005).

His portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours, and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018.

Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and served as its president from 2015 to 2024.

His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Olivier Award.

Branagh directed and starred as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022), and A Haunting in Venice (2023).

He played supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's films Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), and Oppenheimer (2023).

In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.