Kenneth Branagh felt inspired to play Laurence Olivier in new film My Week With Marilyn thanks to a letter the acting legend sent him when he was a 20-year-old wannabe.
Branagh, who has received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of the great Brit in the movie, wrote to Olivier for help when he was struggling to play an old man in a play - and his hero replied.
Branagh recalls, "I was playing a character who was 60 years old and I didn't know how to do it and my single attempt to do so was to pour a lot of flour into my hair and walk a little bent, but every time I moved around, it was like I was in a snowstorm because the flour kept coming out.
"In those days, in a book called Who's Who in the Theatre, actors enclosed their address... so I was able to write to his home address.
"He did respond. I'd said, 'Please, is there anything... a piece of music, a painting, a book, anything that inspired you?' And he said, 'Yes, and I'm not going to tell you any of it. My advice is to just have a bash and hope for the best.'"
The tip wasn't exactly what Branagh wanted at the time, but it became invaluable when he started preparing to play Olivier onscreen.
He explains, "I wrote that down and put it up on my dressing room mirror and every day when I tried the business of becoming him with a prosthetic chin piece and hair colour and everything, I'd finally look in the mirror and I'd see this little handwritten note, saying: 'Remember, have a bash and hope for the best'."
The latest adaptation of Agatha Christie's 83-year-old classic whodunit, this lavish, star-studded film is old-style...
Britain's epic 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk has been dramatised on film before, but no one...
It's 1940 and World War II is in full swing. Allied soldiers from Britain, Belgium,...
It's the 1930s and a group of strangers from different walks of life board a...
In one of the biggest military disasters in British history, 400,000 soldiers found themselves stranded...
In the late 80s, Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt) was the most famous police detective on...
The story of Romeo and Juliet is one of unconditional love that shows how far...
Cinderella is an uncommonly kind young woman, overcome with the loss of her dear father....
Following her mother's death, Cinderella was faced with a lonely existence while her beloved father...
Everyone is familiar with the classic fairy tale of Cinderella. Cinderella lives a mundane life...
There's nothing very original in this spy thriller, but director Branagh gives the film a...
Jack Ryan is a young office worker at CIA headquarters whose life turns upside down...