Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh is a British actor and filmmaker, born in Belfast on 10 December 1960 and raised mainly in Reading in England. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, served as its president from 2015 to 2024, and was knighted in 2012. As a director he is best known for bringing Shakespeare to the screen, directing and starring in Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996) and As You Like It (2006), and he has also directed Dead Again, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Thor and Cinderella, as well as the Hercule Poirot film series in which he plays the detective. His semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021) won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. On television he starred in Fortunes of War, Shackleton and the BBC series Wallander, and received a Primetime Emmy Award for playing Reinhard Heydrich in the HBO film Conspiracy.