Kenneth Branagh On Belfast — An Empire Podcast Interview Special

The Empire Film Podcast

Bauer Media

Tv & Film, Film Reviews

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kenneth Branagh's wonderful BELFAST sees the writer-director (but not actor on this one, as he explains) return to his youth for inspiration, charting a beautiful black-and-white path through the childhood of a young boy growing up in the Northern Irish capital in 1969, just as The Troubles are about to truly erupt, changing the lives of all who lived there for decades to come. In this Empire Podcast interview special, Chris Hewitt sits down on Zoom with his fellow Northern Irishman, Branagh, and they talk about growing up during very different eras, about Branagh's decision to make the movie now, about his creative choices such as going black-and-white and using copious amounts of Van Morrison on the soundtrack, Northern Irish accents and much, much more. The film has been nominated for many BAFTAs and Oscars since, and may well scoop the ultimate prize on the big nights. This fascinating and fun interview may just tell you why, so it might. Wee buns!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Chris Ewitt, so I am and welcome to a very special interview podcast dedicated
0:19.9	to Kenneth Branagh's wonderful new film, The Multi-Baptor and Oscar-nominated Bell
0:24.8	Fast, which has been out in cinema's country for a couple of weeks now.
0:29.0	You might not think it to hear him, but Branagh was born and raised in Bellfast in the
0:34.0	1960s, leaving Northern Ireland behind with his parents when he was 9 years old.
0:40.4	Those experiences have formed and informed the semi-autobiographical Bellfast, which
0:46.0	Branagh wrote and directed, and which centers on a young boy not named Kenneth, interestingly
0:51.6	enough, growing up in Bellfast in 1969, just as the troubles were about to erupt and change
0:57.6	life in Northern Ireland for decades.
1:01.1	It's perhaps the most personal film Branagh has ever made, and speaking as someone who
1:05.8	also was born and raised in Northern Ireland, albeit a very different part of the country
1:10.3	at a very different time, I connected it deeply with it too.
1:14.6	And so that notion of growing up in Northern Ireland of being surrounded by violence but
1:19.7	also by camaraderie and warmth and love forms the backbone of my in-depth conversation
1:26.6	from a Branagh which was recorded over Zoom recently.
1:31.0	We also talk about the impetus for him to make the film now at this stage in his life,
1:36.5	the decision to adorn the soundtrack with fan morris and classics, and how life changed
1:41.6	for him when he moved away from Northern Ireland at such a tender age.
1:46.1	But as we discovered, you can take the boy out of Bellfast, but you can't take Bellfast
1:50.3	out of the boy.
1:51.3	So you can't wee buns and all that.
1:54.0	Unlike Helena Hiras' recent interview with Jamie Dornan for the same film, our accents
	...

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