Kenneth Branagh

Description

Kenneth Charles Branagh (born December 10 1960) is an Emmy Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated Northern Irish-born actor and film director. <p>Branagh was born in Belfast to working-class Protestant parents Frances (Harper), a homemaker, and William Branagh, a carpenter who ran a company that specialised in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings. He was educated at Grove Primary School. At age nine, he relocated with his family to Reading in England to escape the Troubles between Protestants and Catholics.<p>Branagh achieved some early measure of success in his native Northern Ireland for his role as the title character in the BBC's Play for Today series known as the Billy Plays, written by Graham Reid and set in Belfast. He has worked on both stage and screen. He received initial acclaim in the UK for his stage performances, including the title role in Hamlet. More recently, in 2003, he starred in the Royal National Theatre's production of David Mamet's Edmond. <p>Branagh is probably...