Kenneth Branagh was born in London in 1956. He attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in 1977, and after three years there, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He went on to appear in many productions for the RSC, including "Measure for Measure", "The Real Thing", "The Iceman Cometh", "The Birthday Party", "Love's Labour's Lost", "Henry V", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Titus Andronicus", "The Winter's Tale", "Macbeth" and several others.
He was nominated for an Olivier Award in 1984 for his appearance at The Royal National Theatre in the National Theatre's production of Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer'. Then Kenneth appeared in a number of films including John Schlesinger's Gosford Park, which featured Colin Firth and Maggie Smith
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Kenneth has also appeared in numerous television plays, including the BBC Television dramatization of Agatha Christie's 'Ordeal by Innocence', 'The Trial of Stephen Buckley' (for which he won the 1992 BAFTA TV Award Best Actor), 'Lace' (for which he was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award Best Actor), 'Nicholas Nickleby' (1994) and 'A Murder of Quality'. Kenneth made his feature film debut with Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (with Juliette Binoche). He then teamed up with Ben Kingsley again for the 1998 Merchant Ivory production of 'Gosford Park', starring Maggie Smith.
Kenneth also starred alongside Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter in the Merchant Ivory production of Michael Radford's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel 'Anna Karenina'. Kenneth had a leading role alongside Paul Bettany and Brendan Gleeson starrer 'Troy', which came out in 2004.
Kenneth is married to actress Emma Thompson (deceased) who played Mrs. Dalloway in the film adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.
They have two sons together; actor/writer Henry Branagh; and actor/director Ted Branagh. Ken is currently filming the blockbuster film Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows with Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Jude Law.