Kenneth Branagh Quotes

People think memorizing lines is hard, when that's the last thing you worry about. You get that done, and then you've got to worry about the internal stuff, which is the challenging part.

I don't have an 'actor cry.'

I have such respect for guest actors. They don't know all the characters as deeply as the regulars, and the cast isn't your family, so you have more at stake.

People don't know this, but I'm going through a lot every time I walk on stage, which is part of doing theater. That's why it's so addictive, I must say.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

Many times I've sat with a camera and another actor and seen all their fears and insecurities and struggles. You want to support them and help them as much as you can.

Oliver Stone's strategy is to unnerve the actors so as to make them alert and alive.

I went to school to be an actor in Canada and realized I hated auditions once I left, which is a huge problem if you want to get a part.

I find that a lot of the good acting comes out when you're physically being pushed: your brain turns off and just deals with the situation at hand. You get to a point where you're exhausted at the end of the day, but I quite like that.

You have to find it in the moment, and that's one of the challenges of being an actor - especially a film actor - is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There's no trick to it. You just have to do.

There's something scary about acting always, because basically you do all this work in a vacuum, and then suddenly there's a lot of money spent making a film, and there's suddenly a camera here, going, 'Right? What are you gonna do?'

One of the things an actor tries to access is immediacy, so that you feel like you're experiencing it for the first time. But when you're playing a character who knows what's going to happen and can't stop himself to reacting although he knows he can't stop himself from reacting, there's a whole separate set of things to consider.

Sometimes when I do a musical, they'll be a scene that comes up, and I'm like, 'Oh, I hate this scene,' but you get through it.

When you play guest parts, you play your story in a very urgent kind of way.

As an actor, you think you know your craft, you know the conflicts in your character, but often you don't.

I think my concerns are the same as every actor. Can I find this character and make it come to life properly?

I learned a tremendous amount about dialogue because I suffered as an actor.

I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!

I lack confidence as an actor.

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.

As an actor, you want to push yourself.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.

Actors want to impress at the beginning, so you take advantage of that by suddenly saying, 'Right, you're here for two weeks.' What you're doing is creating a siege mentality.

If you can walk into a set and feel the reality of it, then immediately you're not having to work to bring yourself into the character.