Kenneth Branagh
Born: 10 December 1960
Where: Belfast, Northern Ireland
The actor and director managed to survive youthful acclaim as the "new Olivier" to establish himself as one of Britain's most talented actors and film-makers.
Cinematic highlights include Rabbit Proof Fence, A Month in the Country and a chilling reading of Nazi commander Heydrich in Conspiracy.
A keen Shakespearian dramatist, he was also Oscar-nominated for his big screen version of Hamlet and also got the nod (as actor and director) for Henry V.
Born in Belfast, Branagh moved to England with his family at 10 and began reading Shakespeare to escape schoolyard taunting of his Irish accent.
He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at 23, opening its 1984 season at Stratford as the youngest Henry V in its history.
Branagh gained international recognition and dual Oscar nods as the director and star of the 1989 screen adaptation of Henry V.
He travelled to the USA to helm his next feature, a contemporary would-be Hitchcockian thriller, Dead Again with wife Emma Thompson.
He returned home to make Peter's Friends before going back to his first love, adapting Much Ado About Nothing, a big-screen romp with Thompson, Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves.
He then transformed himself into a muscular hunk to star in Francis Ford Coppola's Frankenstein, alongside Robert De Niro.
Returning to Shakespeare, Branagh won critical acclaim for his turn as Iago to Laurence Fishburne's Othello and praise for writing and directing a black and white Midwinter's Tale.
Branagh appeared in Al Pacino's documentary drama, Looking for Richard, about acting Shakespeare, and followed with his own four-hour version of Hamlet, which won him his fourth Oscar nod, this time for best adapted screenplay.
His Savannah accent was spot-on in The Gingerbread Man although his messed-up magazine writer in Woody Allen's Celebrity was poo-poohed.
He went on to act opposite then-love Helena Bonham Carter in Theory Of Flight.
He suffered embarrassing failure in his biggest picture yet, as Will Smith and Kevin Kline's nemesis in flop Wild Wild West.
He delivered the first of three promised Shakespeare adaptations under the Shakespeare Film Company, established in partnership with Intermedia and Miramax, with the breezy 2000 musical Love's Labour's Lost.
But dismal box-office returns made it unlikely the other proposed films would appear.
When Hugh Grant was forced to drop out he took on the part of vain professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets.
Subsequent roles included the acclaimed Australian drama Rabbit Proof Fence and the big screen take on the children's classic Five Children and It.
He will be hoping to garner better reviews with his next big-budget Hollywood appearance - opposite Tom Cruise in the third instalment of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
