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KENNETH BRANAGH TO PRESENT AT OSCAR WILDE EVENT

Posted Friday, February 10th, 2012 - Comments Off on KENNETH BRANAGH TO PRESENT AT OSCAR WILDE EVENT
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For Immediate Release

February 10, 2012 – Academy Award nominee Kenneth Branagh will present screenwriter John Logan with his award at the US-Ireland Alliance’s seventh annual Oscar Wilde:  Honoring the Irish in Film.  The event will be held on 23 February at Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams’ Santa Monica production company.

Trina Vargo, president of the non-profit US-Ireland Alliance, welcomed the addition of Branagh noting:  “Mr. Branagh and Mr. Logan share a connection to Northern Ireland   Ken was born there, as were John s parents.  They also share of great love of Shakespeare. Branagh has starred, on stage and screen in many of Shakespeare s works, as well as having directed and produced many to great acclaim.  Logan recently wrote the screenplay for the film CORIOLANUS.

Branagh is nominated for Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Sir Laurence Olivier in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.  He also garnered Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for the performance.   This marks Branagh s fifth career Academy Award nomination, making him the first actor to receive five nominations in five separate categories (Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, Screenplay, and Short).

Logan is also nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Writing (Adapted Screenplay) for the Martin Scorsese film HUGO.  In addition to receiving an award, Logan will introduce fellow honoree Michelle Williams, who is also Academy Award nominated for her role in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.  The film was directed by Simon Curtis who will also attend the event.

Last May, Branagh released the anticipated MARVEL action adventure, THOR, which he directed, starring Natalie Portman, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Chris Hemsworth.  To date, the film has grossed over $449 million worldwide.

Branagh’s first venture into filmmaking met instant success. His 1989 production of HENRY V, which he adapted from the Shakespeare and both starred in and directed, won a score of international awards including Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor and Best Director. He was subsequently invited to Hollywood to direct and star in DEAD AGAIN, which was a huge international hit, and next directed himself in the ensemble film PETER’S FRIENDS, which won the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Comedy.   Branagh s second Shakespearean film success as actor, director, writer and producer was MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, which was invited to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, and in the same year his short film of the Chekhov play SWAN SONG received an Academy Award® nomination.   He went on to direct Robert De Niro in the commercial hit MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN and his black and white film A MIDWINTER’S TALE opened the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won the prestigious Osello d’Oro at the Venice Film Festival. Branagh s critically acclaimed full-length version of HAMLET, in 70mm, received 4 Academy Award nominations. His fourth Shakespeare film adaptation was a 1930’s musical version of LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST. More recently, Branagh directed HBO Films’ AS YOU LIKE IT, a film of Mozart’s opera THE MAGIC FLUTE and SLEUTH, written by Harold Pinter and starring Jude Law and Michael Caine.

His other film work includes acting roles in Pat O’Connor’s A MONTH IN THE COUTRY; Oliver Parker’s OTHELLO; Robert Altman’s THE GINGERBREAD MAN; Woody Allen’s CELEBRITY; Danny Boyle’s ALIEN LOVE TRIANGLE; Paul Greengrass’s THE THEORY OF FLIGHT; Barry Sonnenfeld’s WILD WILD WEST; Philip Noyce’s RABBIT PROOF FENCE; HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS; the Richard Curtis comedy, PIRATE RADIO; and Bryan Singer’s VALKYRIE.  Branagh has appeared in several outstanding television dramas including a recent turn as Detective Kurt Wallander in the BAFTA winning series WALLANDER, which earned him Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominations. He has also starred in the title role of SHACKLETON for Channel 4; A&E s CONSPIRACY in which he won an Emmy® for Best Actor and earned a Golden Globe® nomination; WARM SPRINGS in which he played FDR and was nominated for an Emmy®, Golden Globe® and a SAG Award.

Branagh s stage work began when he made his West End acting debut in ANOTHER COUNTRY which earned him the Society of West End Theater’s Award for “Most Promising Newcomer.”   He founded the Renaissance Theatre Company for whom he either starred in or directed the following works: TWELFTH NIGHT, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, AS YOU LIKE IT, HAMLET, LOOK BACK IN ANGER, UNCLE VANYA, KING LEAR, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, CORIOLANUS and THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.   He also wrote the plays PUBLIC ENEMY and TELL ME HONESTLY.

Numerous stage appearances include the RSC’s HENRY V, LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, and HAMLET.  His more recent theatrical endeavors include directing the hit stage comedy THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE which transferred from London’s West End to Broadway where it received a TONY nomination, and five-star performances on the British stage in RICHARD III, Mamet’s EDMOND and IVANOV.  He will be returning to the stage for the reopening season at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in a new comedy PAINKILLER.

Sponsors of the Oscar Wilde event include American Airlines and Accenture.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon