Kenneth Branagh Did His Own Stunts in Apple TV's 'Mayday' — and Bonded With Ryan Reynolds Over Football
Kenneth Branagh, aged 65, performed his own stunts in the Apple TV Cold War action-comedy "Mayday," arriving early for physical training after directors advised him on how an older actor could take part in the action sequences, according to Variety.
The film, set in the Soviet Union in 1987, pairs Branagh with Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds plays a crashed United States Air Force pilot who teams up with Branagh's character — a former KGB operative and possible assassin, described as a "Top Gun"-loving exile living in the forests of Siberia — to escape. Apple TV releases "Mayday" on 4 September. Most of the production shot in Canada.
Off-camera, the two leads found common ground through football. Branagh is a lifetime supporter of Tottenham Hotspur. Reynolds co-owns Wrexham — the Welsh club, with actor Rob McElhenney, that was playing in the Championship, the second tier of English football below the Premier League — and the two men's shared passion for the sport became a bond during filming.
Branagh spoke about the project in Edinburgh, where he received the Edinburgh International Film Festival's inaugural outstanding contribution to cinema award. The festival also hosted a 30th-anniversary screening of his 1996 film adaptation of "Hamlet," shown in its full, unbridged four-hour version with an interval.
That screening carried its own story. Kate Winslet starred in Branagh's "Hamlet" at age 20, before she became widely known. Branagh had originally auditioned her for his 1994 film "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," but at 17 she was considered too young for the part. Two years later, he cast her as Ophelia.
During the "Hamlet" shoot, Winslet received the phone call from James Cameron that would change her career — an offer to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in "Titanic." The call came on a day she was shooting one of Ophelia's mad scenes for Branagh's film.
What makes the Edinburgh appearance land is the span it captures: from a four-hour Shakespeare epic three decades ago to a Cold War action film with one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. Branagh has moved between directing classical literature and acting in blockbusters throughout his career, and "Mayday" adds another entry to that pattern. The stunts are the detail that catches the eye — a performer in his mid-sixties, cleared by directors for physical work, choosing to do it himself rather than hand it to a double.
