Renowned for his portrayal of another melancholy Scandinavian— Prince Hamlet—Kenneth Branagh brings new depths of insight to the existential Nordic outlook as dour Swedish sleuth, Kurt Wallander, in Wallander: An Event in Austumn, based on the bestselling thriller by Henning Mankell.
One of the world's most admired actors, directors, and screenwriters, Branagh was recently knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to Drama and to the community in Northern Ireland”—which is where he grew up. After breaking into British theater as a young actor, his first venture into film met instant success: a 1989 production of Shakespeare’s Henry V that won a score of international awards including Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor and Best Director. Four critically acclaimed Shakespeare films followed, including his spectacular four-hour version of Hamlet in 1996, which included every line of the play that Shakespeare wrote.
In an astonishingly wide-ranging career, Branagh has directed DeNiro and Gielgud, acted under Altman and Woody Allen, and played everyone from Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (which he also directed) to polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in A&E’s Shackleton, to Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn, which won him his fifth career Academy Award® nomination, making him the first actor to receive five nominations in five separate categories (Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, Screenplay, and Short). Branagh is currently set to direct the newest installment of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise for Paramount.
