Kenneth Branagh Accepts Edinburgh's Inaugural Cinema Award and Talks Mayday, Putin, and a British Theatre Documentary
Kenneth Branagh arrived in Edinburgh to accept the film festival's first-ever Outstanding Contribution to Cinema award, presented by festival director Paul Ridd. The honour kicked off an on-stage conversation with The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, in which Branagh looked back across a 40-year career that began with his 1989 directorial debut, Henry V — a film the festival screened as part of the tribute. Deadline
He also got a laugh from the room. Accepting the award, Branagh joked that he would break it into little pieces and hand them out to the audience.
The conversation turned to his upcoming Apple film Mayday, an 1980s-set action story in which Branagh plays a disillusioned KGB agent who teams up with a US Navy pilot, played by Ryan Reynolds, stranded behind enemy lines. Branagh praised the film's writer-directors, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, whose credits include Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. He also admitted he thought the part offered to him should have gone to Zach Galifianakis — but said he was pleased they asked him to play it. Deadline
Asked whether he would consider playing Vladimir Putin on screen, Branagh kept the door open but set conditions. It would depend on the writing, he said, and on whether he felt he could serve the role appropriately. Deadline
His next project takes him off-screen, or at least out of the frame as a performer. Branagh is attached to a documentary about the history of British theatre in the 20th century, directed by British actor Freddie Fox. Deadline
For audiences, the Edinburgh appearance offered a rare look at a career that has moved freely between Shakespeare and blockbusters, with a Cold War action-comedy and a theatre documentary now queued up next. Branagh has played kings, detectives, and now a Soviet spy; whether he adds a Russian president to that list is, by his own account, a question of finding the right script.
