Branagh Ready for the Next Stage
Electronic Telegraph, 24 September 2001
Appearing relaxed and confident, he is
calmly discussing his plans to return to
the stage after a 10-year absence, in
Richard III in Sheffield next spring. No
matter that three and a half years ago he
doubted whether he would ever perform
on stage again because, he said, "I would
be too scared".
What a difference a few attained
ambitions and a spell in Hollywood make.
"I think things go in cycles," he mused.
"People have been after me for a long time
about when I will do another play and go
back to the theatre, and the answer was when I felt really excited about doing it. Now I do. Having looked at Richard III for many years now and having talked to
various people about it, I suddenly realise I am very excited and it is something I am compelled to do."
It marks a return to his theatrical roots for the 40-year-old Belfast-born actor who, since joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984 at the age of 23, has moved with relative ease between Shakespeare, television drama (Fortunes of
War, in which he co-starred with his then-wife Emma Thompson) and
Hollywood, where his recent work has included starring in Woody Allen's Celebrity, providing the voice for Miguel in the animated The Road to El Dorado
and playing the evil Dr Loveless in the embarrassing The Wild, Wild West.
Perhaps not surprisingly given this choice of films, it is his Shakespearean films that have been best received. Since winning Oscar nominations as both Best Actor and Best Director for his 1989 Henry V, he has directed movie versions of Much
Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost.
But now he feels that cycle has ended. In the past few months he has been
indulging his desire for variety and fresh challenges by playing SS General Richard
Heydrich in the television drama Conspiracy (broadcast on BBC2 this autumn), for
which he received an Emmy nomination; taking the title role in the biographical
drama Shackleton about the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (to be shown
on Channel 4 early next year); and starring in director Philip Noyce's film
Rabbit-Proof Fence (also scheduled for next year), the true story of three
Aboriginal girls who were taken away from their families in 1931 as part of an
official Australian government policy.
We were talking during a brief stopover he made in Los Angeles on his way back
to England from a trip to New Zealand. "It was just a holiday - I don't talk about
my private life," he said with a smile, doubtless mindful of the unwanted publicity
he attracted with the 1995 break-up of his marriage to Emma Thompson and his
subsequent four-year relationship with the actress Helena Bonham Carter.
His close-cropped hair is back to its natural reddish-brown, having been dyed
blond for the Heydrich role - "I got rid of the man by washing him out of my
hair," he said - and he was looking well rested and was, he said, eager to return to
work.
Before turning his attentions to Richard III, however, he has a very different stage
commitment to fulfil. He will be directing The Play What I Wrote, a tribute to
Morecambe and Wise which opens at the Liverpool Playhouse on Thursday and is
expected to transfer to the West End.
"I've always been a big fan of Morecambe and Wise and when I was 14, I wrote
to them to ask if I could get tickets for their Christmas show," he recalled. "I
couldn't, but they sent me an autographed photo instead."
One of the running gags in the Morecambe and Wise Show was that Ernie Wise
boasted of writing a play very quickly and referred to it as "the play what I
wrote".
The comedy duo the Right Size - Sean Foley and Hamish McColl - wrote The Play
What I Wrote about two comedians who are asked to do a tribute show about
Morecambe and Wise. The last 20 minutes of the play will feature the classic skit
and each evening there will be a surprise celebrity guest.
"Morecambe and Wise were such a great combination of silly humour, fantastic
warmth and pathos," said Branagh. "The two lads from the Right Size have often
been compared to them as being very silly, funny and benign, so I knew about
their work. They approached me because they wanted somebody to direct it who
was keen on Morecambe and Wise and had some history in comedy. I'm looking
forward to it very much. It's a very funny script. They've managed to invoke
Morecambe and Wise without impersonating them."
And the guest stars? "They're being kept secret," he said. "Our plan is that each
night we will have a surprise guest star because one of the features of the shows
was that Morecambe and Wise had a guest star come in and be in one of the plays
what Ernie wrote. I think there'll be a lot of genuine surprises."
While The Play What I Wrote will be a singularly British venture, Branagh is
currently receiving much praise in America for his portrayal of Heydrich in the
HBO cable television production of Conspiracy, an account of the Wansee
Conference on January 20, 1942, at which 15 high-ranking members of the Third
Reich enjoyed a sumptuous meal while matter-of-factly putting into motion a plan
to kill 11 million Jews as part of Hitler's "final solution".
"You've got this group of seemingly ordinary civil servants speaking in a tone and
manner that is utterly chilling," said Branagh. "I read the script with horror
because of the casual way in which mass destruction was discussed."
Conspiracy was filmed mainly at Shepperton, where the room at Wansee was
duplicated. "There was a terrible feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation on set,"
said Branagh. "There was something about the Nazi uniforms that was creepily
effective. Once those jackets were on, the doors were closed, someone said
'action' and you started performing in this low-key way, you were struck very
terribly by the fact you were re-creating something that had really occurred.
"As soon as there was a break in filming a lot of the actors would take their Nazi
jackets off and go outside just to get away from the atmosphere of it."
Equally demanding but in a very different way was Shackleton, which he finished
filming a few weeks ago. "We shot in the Arctic and spent about six weeks on an
icebreaker in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, shooting on ice floes that wouldn't
behave themselves. Occasionally we had to get off the ice very quickly as it broke
up underneath us. We were very, very cold and it was physically very challenging
but it lent terrific authenticity to the piece."
Now, yet another cycle in his life begins as he turns his thoughts to the stage - not
just Richard III at Michael Grandage's Sheffield Crucible but also the RSC, with
whom he has been having talks with a view to returning there. "The last time I
acted on stage was with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Hamlet 10 years ago,"
he said. "Now I'm motivated to do it again."
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