Tenet Actor Kenneth Branagh Isn’t Sure If He’s the Villain

Christopher Nolan’s movies are well-known for leaving fans questioning the reality of what they saw long after leaving the theaters. As it turns out, the actors who work on Nolan’s movies are not much better off when it comes to understanding the plot of the films. In an interview with Total Film, Tenet actor Kenneth Branagh admitted he is not quite sure if he is the villain of the movie.

“Given the nature of it, as Chris to some extent sort of reinvents the wheel here, a lot of people start engaging with John David Washington’s character in both expected ways…so you might expect me to be an antagonist…but then [the story] doesn’t quite follow what you might expect as the story plays out.”

Kenneth Branagh has already made several appearances in the trailers for the movie, in which he can be seen talking in a Russian accent, shooting at people, holding Elizabeth Debicki’s character against her will, and making vague threats to John David Washington’s character. These were hints enough for audiences to conclude Branagh was playing the villain of the piece.

There is also the fact that the movie has been described as a ‘Quantum cold war’, meaning any Russian agents are probably going to be portrayed in a negative light. But knowing Nolan, things are never as simple as they at first appear, and there is more than a chance that the roles of the protagonist and antagonist will be reversed in the film at some point. The twisty plot even prompted Branagh to compare the screenplay to a crossword puzzle.

“I kid you not, I read this screenplay more times than I have ever read any other thing I have ever worked on. It was like doing the Times crossword puzzle every day, I would imagine. Except the film and the screenplay didn’t expect you, or need you, to be an expert.”

So audiences can expect Tenet to have as complex a narrative as Inception or Memento, and the role that Branagh plays will be far from a standard movie villain, as the actor goes on to elaborate.

“In the playing of it, and in the scenes, he keeps up turning, or playing forward and backward, our expectations of what the character should be. So my conversations with [Nolan] about my character were constant, because the character’s evolution was not set. It was a series of constant surprises.”

Tenet tells the story of an international spy who is tasked with preventing armageddon with the aid of a new piece of technology known as ‘Time inversion’, which is used to reverse the flow of time in small pockets so effect takes place before cause. And this is just what we know from the trailers so far, which is sure to be only a small part of the labyrinthine movie which Nolan himself describes as his most ambitious yet. The film is set to make its debut on the 17th of July in theaters if the lockdown will allow it. This comes from Syfy.

Topics: Tenet