To think Kenneth Branagh is a bit of a twerp?

[CrystalMcPistol]

I know he's a Sir but I can't bring myself to put that in the title as 1) the honours system is a load of old hooey and 2) you just know that he refers to himself Sir Kenneth Branagh when ordering a taxi or booking a table in a restaurant. Twerp.

Also his acting is so self conscious, it's very 'look at me, someone once said in 1992 that I was the successor to Olivier's crown. I'm a Very Serious Actor don't you know'. Twerp.

And I've never enjoyed one of his films! Emma Thompson must pat herself on the back every night when she looks across the bed and sees Greg Wise lying there.

My next door neighbour had her full title on her gas bill.

I'm sure British Gas were really impressed billing Lady Ladeeda at number 3 Shite Lane, Wandsworth

pointless post

YABU

Brilliant actor and always comes across as lovely in interviews too

No idea how you have deduced he's a twerp - were you perhaps thinking of Daniel Day Lewis?

I think you have to be a bit in love with yourself to write two autobiographies before you're 25.

But I still love Kenneth Branagh, and think that on balance he is one of our best actors - when he is good, he is really, really, really good.

There was this thing I watched him in, not very well known, where he played a film writer who made friends with a little girl with a disability living next door. He was absolutely superb in that.

And this will sound weird...but the back of his head is very sexy. The front of it ain't bad either...but the back of it curves very sexily into his neck. You'll notice next time you see him

Did someone mention the Balkan Trilogy? I've been in love with him since then. Its a long time.!
I opened the thread with a degree of trepidation in case he had been a twerp, though it took me a while to forgive the affair.

He asked my aunt to marry him many moons ago...she declined.

Why did she decline?

She always been very career focussed and didn't want to marry...she's mid 50's now and still single.

Does she have any regrets?

Nope!

I am a teeny bit gutted though...

Glad to hear it

That she doesn't regret it not that you're a bit gutted!

I'm another one with a soft spot for KB and I fancy him too even though DH thinks it's hilarious for some reason I think he comes across as really likeable and I think he's a great actor and director. I even like him in Wallander, although not as much as Christer Henriksson.

I have a huge soft spot for KB, ever since the Billy plays. And that is going back a long way!
While ET is a great actress (probably at her best in the sublime Tutti Frutti) she's always struck me as a huge "luvie"

But he let Keanu Reeves do Shakespeare.

I have a lot of love for Keanu, but he is not a fine Shakespearean actor. Anyone encouraging KR down that path is definitely a twerp.

I think he's great. Two of my friends have worked with him in different contexts and both said he was absolutely lovely and down to earth. One friend has gone on to be pretty famous in her own right and so has met lots of slebs. She says that KB is the most charismatic of the the lot!

I think KB is a genius, and I've paid a fortune for tickets to his plays this autumn.

My DH husband thinks he is a ghastly luvvie. My DH is wrong and I occasionally attempt to forcibly re - educate him, but he's stubbornly refusing to acknowledge KB superbness.

But he let Keanu Reeves do Shakespeare
Topless
In leather trousers

I'll forgive him

Kenneth Branagh did a hilarious interview for the Wittertainment podcast on Radio 5. He came across as really lovely! I forced my 2 boys to go to Cinderella because of him!

KR looked even more baffled throughout than Gerard Depardieu in Green Card, and without the excuse that he didn't speak English so had no idea what his lines meant... Oh, wait.

Actually, his Don John was marginally less unconvincing than his Jonathan Harker. His 'I know where the Bawst'd sleeps!' never ceases to crack me up.

Am also very fond of a KB film performance opposite an extremely baby-faced Colin Firth in A Month in The Country. But I would scramble unheeding over a nude Colin Firth to get to the lipless wonder. Any day.

If nothing else at least my thread has united all you steadfast Branagh Lusters (Blusters) in your dignified devotion.

You're the grown up version of those people who lose all their wits and reason to their Benedict Cumberbatch fandom.

I think the studio said KB had to have a big name. So he had KR in a small but headline part, and just let everyone perve over him. He said in an interview that everyone make or female, straight or gay would enjoy the massage scene, and I tend to agree.

Fishwives I also love A Month In the Country (hence my username). Being married to Rev Keach is so dull, I spend a lot of time on Mumsnet .

I love Ken. I would have loved to go see one of his plays this autumn but funds will not allow so I'm coping with watching DVDs. Unfortunately I also love Benedict Cumberbatch so I suppose I'm a Kennyloving Cumberluster

Think KB is an excellent actor, with the exception of Wallander. Don't think it is possible to be a truly great actor without an enormous ego; some are simply better at concealing it than others.
Incidentally, I think ET, an excellent actress but what an ego, has totally emasculated Greg Dyke; compare his dismal performances in recent third- rate TV serials with his dazzling performance as Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, which in part redeemed the mess ET made of its adaptation.