Kenneth Branagh

We're self obsessed and mad and stupid - not that other people can't be the same way - but the extremes are kind of honest in some mad way. Anyway, I like them.

My definition of success is control.

I don't find myself so exercised by a desperation to be new.

In Northern Ireland, I truly, effortlessly, knew who I was. I knew where I belonged. I felt completely and utterly secure.

It's quite hard for people to just accept that they're very contradictory.

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.

I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure.

I remember the first book I bought, when I was about 11... Dad said, 'What have you got that for? What are libraries for?'

There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them.

I only really cast people who are desperate to be in it - who were dying to be in it, whose talent I believed in and were dead ready to do the work that was necessary.

Actors are the best and the worst of people. They're like kids. When they're good, they're very very good. When they're bad they're very very naughty.

I like to cast actors I admire, one's that are talented. Each one will bring something new to the part. This play has been done thousands of times and now certain characters are too familiar.

I think A Midsummer Night's Dream would be terrific because of the transformations that occur. Or The Tempest, things like that. Extraordinary larger than life or supernatural element.

I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.

My dad, for the first 15 years of my career, on every visit he made to a play or a film set, would find the oldest person on set and say, 'Do you think my son has a future?'

I had a friend who introduced me to a meditation practice which involves a couple of half-hours a day of meditation, where essentially you try to achieve a stillness that allows you to just be there in the moment.

The director needs to be in command on set because everything crumbles if that's not the case.

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

I love thrillers, and I always have.

I'm basically quite a cheerful person.