Kenneth Branagh: Prince Hamlet in the Flesh The key to success for acting any role is to become the person who you are acting as, since only the most natural and emotional acting will effectively convince an audience of the feelings you are trying to project towards them. The feelings that a character has must be shown very clearly through body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice to be successful at acting that character. Kenneth Branagh uses these methods of expression to very effectively act as Prince Hamlet during the first soliloquy of Act 1, Scene 2 of Hamlet. Kenneth Branagh’s portrayal of Hamlet as a disgruntled young man, is much better than Rory Kinnear’s due to Branagh’s extensive use of facial expressions and pent-up fury in his tone of voice. However, Lawrence Olivier’s portrayal of Hamlet is the worse out of all the actors, as he uses very few methods used by the other two actors in effectively portraying Prince Hamlet.
Kenneth Branagh acts as Hamlet the best due to his extensive use of facial
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However, Kinnear’s portrayal is not as good as Kenneth Branagh’s, as Kinnear fails to capture Hamlet’s anguish and rage in his expressions as well as Branagh does. Kinnear’s voice in the soliloquy is very clear with a sad tone expressing Hamlet’s displeasure of his mother’s marriage. His bodily movements from slamming his hands on a table to shrugging at Cornelius when compared to Hamlet’s father all express Hamlet’s feelings effectively, yet despite this Kinnear is missing something. Kinnear lacks the brimming rage that Branagh displays throughout his soliloquy by keeping a disapproving sneer as he talks about the marriage of Hamlet’s mother. By failing to show Hamlet’s teenage emotions ready to break free and try to fix the recent marriage, Kinnear expresses a less passionate Hamlet which is inferior to