Kenneth Branagh

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.

It would be easy to say that I want to play a role that was very much like myself, but more or less with acting, you get to be all these different things, and you aren't trying to be yourself, so it's escapism in a way.