FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS SITE
Q. Are you Ken?
A. No. And as much as I enjoy the regular barrage of love
letters, recipes, film script proposals, interview requests,
congratulations on his latest film and other notes addressed
to Mr Branagh that I receive, you're much better off sending
those to his office, the address of which is:
Kenneth Branagh
Building 124
Longcross Film Studios
Chobham Lane
Chertsey Surrey KT16 0EE
ENGLAND
Q. Do you know if Ken is wired?
A. Well, he does tend to speak at quite a high CSPM (complex
sentences per minute) rate in interviews, but this is due more
to his passionate enthusiasm for whatever he's talking about
rather than to, say, excessive caffeine intake or other artificial-substance
abuse.
Q. Um, I mean wired electronically. Is there an e-mail
address where I can reach him?
A. I'm sure his office has ventured into the world of cyberspace
in one way or another, but as for a public e-mail address - none
available, I'm afraid.
Q. Bummer. Has Ken ever visited this site?
A. Not that I know of. But Renata knows: most definitely not. (Phew!)
Q. Have you ever met him?
A. Nope. I've had a few opportunities to in the past, but
various circumstances got in the way. I know lotsa folks who've
met him, though, and he's a very nice bloke, from all reports.
(Except the one from a little girl who said he snuck up behind
her and snatched a mini-Mars bar out of her hand when they ran
out of hors d'oeuvres at a Hamlet post-screening reception.)
Q. You're joking!
A. I am, actually. It was probably a Snickers.
So Ngoc did finally meet Kenneth (as did I) at the Golden Quill Award Ceremony in London, 16 January 2000. You can see 'he-really-is-a-very-nice-bloke' Ken being a very nice bloke even in the terrifying context of a picture with dozens of Ken-Friends, including us.
Q. I wanna read gossip about the REAL reason why Ken and Em
broke up, not to mention Ken and Helena gossip, but I can't find
that a section on that here. How come?
A. Ken's very private when it comes to his personal life,
and I'd like to respect that as much as possible. Moreover, I
wouldn't dream of encroaching on the territory of the ever-diligent
and respectable British tabloid press, who have the aforementioned
topics pretty well covered.
Q. This site is HONKIN' HUGE!!! How'd you accumulate so
much crap--er, information--about him?
A. Well, most of the credit has to go to the professors at
my alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley (recently
ranked #1 in the nation for campus drug and alcohol arrests--YEE
HAW!!! Take that, Stanfurd!), whose assignments provided
the impetus to develop a very efficient system (predicated on
slackerdom and sheer laziness) through which the very limits
of procrastination were tested. In other words, it's midnight
and I'm sitting in front of the computer with 8 hours to go before
20 pages of analytical b.s. on the fall of fascism has to be
turned in. Do I research and write that up, or do I arrange my
Ken photos on-line according to hair color and length? Tough
call. Anyway, four years and a college degree later I've got
the biggest testament to psychotic obsession my therapist has
ever seen. Tuition money well spent, I'd say...;)
The site is also so huge thanks to the many cool people who send me pictures, articles and news. To the scanners and typers and emailers extraordinaire: thank you!
Q. So with all that procrastination time available, how come
the design of the Compendium is so simple and basic?
A. Sorry, I'm creatively- and artistically-challenged, as
politically correct folks would say. Not one artistic bone in
my body, I'm afraid. But at least the Compendium loads quickly.
:) I do plan on befriending a professional webmaster in the near
future, though, so when that happens this site will have a killer
design. Until then, I'm quite pleased with my ability to change
the font of sentences and center the occasional graphic.
Forget the professional webmaster, we're sticking to quick-loading and easy to update. Ken's mile-a-minute working life provides the thrills on this site. :-)
Q. I'd like to use some of the photos on this site for my
own site. Would that be okay?
A. Yeah, use whatever you'd like.
Q. I'd like to put a link to this site on my own site.
Would that be okay?
A. Yeah, of course.
Still have a question? Drop me a line at renata@branaghcompendium.com