Belfast boy Branagh hires Irish stars to tell his story
KENNETH BRANAGH is shooting a semi-autobiographical film inspired by his early childhood growing up in Northern Ireland surrounded by a large extended family, with Judi Dench set to play his grandmother.
Ciarán Hinds plays Branagh’s grandfather, while Outlander star Caitríona Balfe, who was born in Dublin and grew up in Monaghan, and Hollywood, Co. Down native Jamie Dornan have been cast as Branagh’s parents.
Jude Hill has been chosen to play the young boy based on Branagh during his early years in Belfast amid the tumult of the late-1960s.
The film is not a straightforward biography of Branagh’s childhood, so at present Hill’s character isn’t called Kenneth.
The movie, called Belfast, has started shooting, quietly, on locations in England; though there are plans for some scenes to be filmed in his hometown.
Branagh has often spoken of the city that ‘shaped’ him, recalling how his parents, Frances and William, were related to half of Belfast ‘and I went to school with the other half’.
He visited his grandparents twice a week and, at the age of nine, felt the wrench when his dad, a joiner, and mother, who worked in a chip shop, moved to Reading, Berkshire, to escape the Troubles.
The award-winning director has described the film as a ‘very personal movie about a place and people I love’. His Death On The Nile, in which he stars as Hercule Poirot – and also directs – is due for release this autumn.
Branagh has previously described Judi Dench as his ‘favourite leading actress’.
‘Very personal movie about a place I love’