Kenneth Branagh: A Man For All Seasons.(The Last Word)(Interview)

Byline: Ginnane Brownell

Kenneth Branaghawho won Oscar nominations in the 1990s for aHenry Va AND aHamletaaseemed to vanish after a few flops and his divorce from actress Emma Thompson. But 2007 was the 47-year-oldas comeback. He directed Mozartas aThe Magic Flutea and Michael Caine in aSleuth.a In 2008, heall star alongside Tom Cruise in aValkyrie,a appear onstage in Chekhovas aIvanov,a play a detective on a British TV show and voice a radio adaptation of aCyrano de Bergerac.a Branagh chatted with NEWSWEEKas Ginnane Brownell in London.

Brownell: Why did you disappear for several years after early critical success?

Branagh: There was a long period from the moment the film-directing career beganato my surpriseawhere there was a constant stream of material that I was passionate to do. Then I did a lot of movies with interesting people [like] Robert Altman and Woody Allen that didnat really work, to be perfectly honestaall in my view very interesting pictures, but they did not make the great splash that might have continued a sense that I was out there. Then I was in things but not carrying them, [so] I could have a quieter life inside them.

Your film aHenry Va helped me get through my university Shakespeare classaso thank you. Do you get that a lot?

To my delight, almost daily. I encounter it all over the place. I was in a garden center the other day, very busy, with people buying fork handles and massive plants and I was paying for my plant. As I was leaving, the 17-year-old girl [behind the counter] who looked, to be perfectly honest, indifferent to everything, said, aMerry Christmas, and nice Iago, by the way.a And I went back and said, aIago from aOthelloa?a And she said, aI was studying it last week.a At the garden-center checkout from a 17-year-old! And not aHarry Pottera!

Do you like to court controversy? You redirect Shakespeare and have now not only taken on a Mozart opera, but the classic 1975 Ingmar Bergman version.