Christopher Nolan: The one director Kenneth Branagh wants to work with forever
Film history is full of examples of great stage actors crossing over to the big screen. Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Mark Rylance, and, a more modern example, Sir Kenneth Branagh.
Trained at RADA, Branagh balanced movies and plays early in his career, making a name for himself as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and their production of Henry V in 1984. Five years later, he directed a major movie adaptation of the production, beginning a lifelong relationship with the Bard.
Aside from directing his own versions of Shakespeare’s classics—and, weirdly, the first Thor movie for Marvel—Branagh has also worked with some of the finest filmmakers around. He’s appeared in Woody Allen’s ensemble piece Celebrity, starred in a short for Danny Boyle, and famously starred in Paul Greengrass’ The Theory of Flight, the subject of the final ever on-air review by legendary film critic Gene Siskel. However, by almost every metric there is, Branagh’s most important collaborator is a fellow knight of the realm.
During an interview with The Talks, the accomplished thespian revealed the one director that he was happy to step in front of the camera for, no matter the occasion. “If I were directed by Christopher Nolan for the rest of time, I would be happy!” he said. “I’m involved with Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, that was shot in IMAX on 65mm, as was our Death on the Nile. Both of them hope to come to cinemas later on this year. Those stories were made for big screen cinema, and because they involve big imaginative leaps into other kinds of places around the world, they are absolutely designed with that communal, big screen experience in mind.”
Branagh first appeared in a Nolan joint in 2017. He played Commander Bolton in Dunkirk, one of the senior officers involved in the evacuation of troops from the titular beach during World War II. He would take on a much larger role in Tenet, playing the movie’s primary antagonist. As the conniving Andrei Sator, a Russian businessman using secret scientific techniques to communicate with the future, he was the main target of John David Washington’s ‘The Protagonist’. He notably adopted a Russian accent for this part to… mixed reactions from audience members. Let’s just say this was far from Ken’s most convincing performance.
Following this interview, Branagh would appear in another Nolan movie, the box office-conquering, Oscar-winning epic Oppenheimer, lending his likeness to famous theoretical physicist Niels Bohr. As part of J Robert Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) mission to create the first atomic bomb, Bohr is smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Denmark for his impressive intellect. He serves as a sort of mentor to Oppenheimer, having taught him at university some years prior. Oppy almost accidentally murders Bohr with a poisoned apple intended for another teacher, although this element was invented purely for the film.
Much has been made over whether Branagh is Nolan’s new good luck charm, following the retirement of Michael Caine. However, with the exception of Sator, the Irishman’s other Nolan roles have been much smaller than those traditionally occupied by Sir Caine. As it stands, Branagh has not been included in the cast list for Nolan’s next film, The Odyssey. Although given his penchant for classical texts, let’s not rule anything out.
