Shakespeare's OK, but for sheer drama, Kenneth Branagh tells Matt
Tench,
you can't beat football
Sometimes actors have to make terrible sacrifices. When England
played
West Germany in Italia 90, Kenneth Branagh was doing King Lear in
Norwich. In
a tent. The telly was on in the green room - where the actors
congregate when
not on stage - but, in the best theatrical traditions, the show had
to go on,
no matter what happened in Turin. Even during the penalties.
``We were in the middle of the storm scene,' Branagh recalls.
``Richard Briers
was out there giving it `Blow winds and crack your cheeks' as they
started
them. We were doing it in relays, as each penalty was being taken.
You'd be
looking over into the wings and somebody would be doing that [he
indicates a
thumbs up or thumbs down]. That's how we found out. It was a
desperate,
desperate night. God knows who was watching the play. We had a tiny
audience
in this tent, who were, I guess, all the people who weren't
interested in
football in the country. If it had been any smaller, we'd have
cancelled it
and watched the game.'
The production was like a microcosm of society. Suddenly everybody
was into
football: `All the women in the company who weren't interested in
football
were right there that night. And Richard Briers, who was playing
Lear and
wasn't interested in football at all, was completely wiped out. He
was in
tears when Gazza got booked.' Branagh smiles a knowing, self-mocking
smile.
`All us bloody actors get very emotional.'
Suffering for his art has become something of a constant in the
career of
Kenneth Branagh, actor, director and football fan. Earlier this year
he missed
David Ginola's goal against Barnsley in the FA Cup because he was
directing a
complicated scene on the first day of his new film, a musical
version of
Love's Labour's Lost. `We were shooting in a swimming pool and we
had 25
synchronised swimmers, Alicia Silverstone and various other people.
But there
was a telly in a van a little way away. It was very hard to get the
scene done
because there wasn't a spark to be found, all the electricians were
interested
in the game. But you get the word back as to what has happened.'
Branagh has been a Spurs fan since his childhood in Belfast, where
every young
boy had three teams: a Northern Irish one, a Scottish one and an
English one.
His were Tottenham, Linfield and Rangers, the Spurs connection made
largely
because Danny Blanchflower was ``from my neck of the woods'. He has
stuck with
them ever since, though he is not a frequent visitor to Tottenham
High Road.
Certainly he does not share the prejudices of a White Hart Lane
diehard - he
is even prepared to give the current Arsenal side some credit - but
he does
boast an impressive knowledge of Spurs past and present, from
glorying in
Ralph Coates's haircut to knowing how long Darren Anderton has left
on his
contract. Of the current lot, he is especially fond of Les
Ferdinand, though
he knows there have to be changes. `I'm amazed by his relative lack
of form,
because I used to go and watch him a lot at QPR,' he says. ``He
played his
best football there. He had a better stint at Newcastle than Spurs,
but I hope
we don't get rid of him as, under the right circs, he could come
again, he's
got such a strong physical presence.'
Branagh learned of George Graham's appointment while in America, a
country in
which it is becoming increasingly easy to catch up on the world
game, albeit
at a price. `I watched a lot of the World Cup in America and oh man!
It was
just the differences. I can't be having this fucking red zone
business.' He
puts on his best American commentator's accent: `It's into the
fucking red
zone [the final third of the field]. That's when you long for the
people who
otherwise drive you bananas. Like Big Ron. Give me Big Ron rather
than Mr Red
Zone. And the assist thing drives me mad and this [back to the heavy
American
accent]: What a great play, let's look at the play again.' He pauses
wearily.
`Which means that somebody's tackled somebody. You long for that
under-
the-skin feel for it - you know, that all of our lot have - even if
it's as
completely potty as Big Ron's chat.' He slows down, enunciating the
rest of
the sentence deliberately and with an infuriated sotto voce
contempt: `Which.
Sometimes. Drives. Me. Bananas. I think, `Shut the fuck up'. I mean,
you do
love him as well, and I was glad that he was there in Barcelona, but
sometimes
you think, what human vocabulary have you pulled these phrases from?
I mean,
no footballer has ever uttered them. `Early doors' or `He's turboed
up there.
. .' '
It is frequently said that footballers are the movie stars of today.
As a
movie star and football fan, Branagh would seem among the best
placed to make
the judgment. Certainly he seems to have dealt with his fame with an
engaging
combination of modesty and irony. Our interview is taking place at a
suite in
the Dorchester which boasts a bath bigger than some swimming pools
I've paid
to use and, although in the middle of a dozen interviews, he is
unfailingly
courteous. He even asks whether I mind if he lights up.
One of his most recent films, Woody Allen's Celebrity, examines the
vulgar
capriciousness of modern fame but, for all his familiarity with the
monster,
it's clear that when it comes to great footballers Branagh is much
like the
rest of us: in awe of them. He still regards meeting George Best at
the age of
22 as `one of the greatest events of my life' (Best's first question
was `What
happened to your accent then?') and, 20 years after Pat Jennings
retired,
Branagh would consider meeting the great goalie an honour.
As a teenager in Reading, Branagh played on Saturday and Sunday
mornings. He
was a bruising competitor who relished a bit of argy-bargy and would
play
anywhere: David Batty, without the skill, by his own description. `I
used to
go to sleep praying I would wake up talented as a footballer,' he
says. `If
you could turn the clock back now, and there was a choice between
being a
relatively successful actor or a successful footballer. . .' He
looks at me
with a half-smile, perhaps anticipating a degree of scepticism on my
part:
``I'd do it in a heartbeat.'
A slightly surreal debate ensues as to whether he'd really make the
change
given that at his age - 38 - his career would be over, unless he was
Lothar
Matthaus. While acknowledging the downside of the swap, his passion
for the
game remains as vivid as a Martin Chivers pile-driver. `It still
gets me more
excited than anything else,' he says. `I just like it. I always have
done.
It's a beautiful thing and I've always watched it. If you think of
the drama
you encounter - professionally, as it were - what is there to equal
the kind
of national moment produced by those semi-finals in Italia 90 and
Euro 96, or
even the last two minutes with Bayern Munich?
`I was watching the European Cup final with Brian Blessed, and we
had five
dogs with us, who, by this stage, were going potty because dogs pick
up
whatever mood you're in. And we were absolutely fucking screaming at
the
thing. With five minutes to go we're both like that. . . [he makes a
forlorn
face] and Big Ron - God bless him - Big Ron in those last five
minutes, said
[in full Big Ron accent] `You know, if they get one, I'll tell you
what I
think, they're going to go on and win it.' The first fucking
accurate thing
he's said the entire game.
`And then they score - they score - and fuck me, it's Sheringham,
you couldn't
have written it. So that, in itself, whatever you think of
Sheringham, you
think, Christ this is like fucking Boys' Own stuff, isn't it? And
Blessed is
so excited he's practically pissed himself, so he's had to go to the
loo, and
he's in the loo when suddenly we're going, `Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!' The
dogs are
fucking flinging themselves out the fucking window 'cos they're
thinking, God,
somebody's being killed. Blessed comes back with fucking stains all
over his
fucking trousers, couldn't fucking believe it. Missed the second
goal,
couldn't believe it. He was practically fucking suicidal. It was
fantastic.'
Then the greatest English actor of his generation pauses for a
second, his
eyes sparkling at the memory. `And this,' he says, `this is drama.'
A longer version of this article appears in the September issue of
FourFourTwo, which goes on sale on Wednesday
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