Kenneth Branagh, classically trained actor and Academy Award nominee, still has stars in his baby blue eyes, gushing about movies like a salesman pitching the world's best insurance policy.
"I want to make pictures, theatrical experiences, that involve you completely - the head, heart, all the senses, a visceral experience, not just kind of an intellectual exercise," the actor-director said excitedly during a recent interview."I want to communicate to all people. Movies should be for anybody, for anything they want, for them to have a serious time or a fun time, not for a group of friends or a bunch of critics."
Crowned as the "new Olivier" after the commercial and critical success of "Henry V," the 30-year-old Branagh enters the house of Hitchcock with his new film, "Dead Again," in which he also stars and directs.
"Dead Again" is very much a movie about movies, with suspense, romance and references to Hitchcock thrillers such as "Dial `M' for Murder," "Spellbound" and "Notorious." It takes place both in the present and during the 1940s, which is seen, appropriately, in glossy black and white.
Branagh has dual roles as a famous '40s conductor, Roman Strauss, and as hard-boiled Los Angeles detective Mike Church. His off-screen wife, Emma Thompson, plays both Strauss' wife and a tormented woman called Grace with whom Church falls in love. Andy Garcia is featured as a newspaper reporter and Derek Jacobi appears as an antiques dealer who puts Grace under hypnosis.
It is, admittedly, not a realistic film, unless you know others like Grace, who suffers from nightmares because of a murder committed in her previous life.
Branagh, however, is less interested in building a case for reincarnation than in pushing the cause for movies themselves.
"I remember seeing `Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,"' he recalled. "It was in two parts with an intermission, and at intermission it's the first time the car flies, goes over the cliff and that kind of thing excited me.
"It also excited me because other people were doing it at the same time. You're aware of the power of popular entertainment. It's different on a big screen with a lot of people than a tiny, tiny screen and two or three people."
Branagh was born in Belfast but moved to England at an early age. Talented and ambitious, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and eventually put on productions with his own Renaissance Theatre Company.
He's always been a bit cheeky. At age 13, he wrote to the local newspaper, complaining about the poor coverage of children's books and suggesting himself as a reviewer. The features editor took him up on the offer.
To get backing for "Henry V," which Olivier released to great acclaim during World War II, he simply approached a producer and asked for backing. Forget that Branagh had appeared in just two films and had never directed before: He would direct and play the title role. Again, his wish was granted.
Filmed in just seven weeks, "Henry V" was both overpowering and intimate, with spectacular sets of battlefields and palaces and the raw, spontaneous feel of a neighborhood talent show. Olivier's version had been a tribute to British patriotism, but Branagh updated this epic about the English invasion of France to a condemnation of war.
"That is sort of the purpose of this ongoing museum, why Shakespeare has been done for hundreds of years. When it's done well, it can work at any time," said Branagh, who received nominations for best actor and best director.
"Some people want it to be obscure, but I say make it accessible and I literally just mean that. It's there for people to go. Movies are more affordable and they're easier to get to. And I feel that does not have to exclude complicated ideas or complex emotions."
Branagh had seen many of his idols on a giant screen and, to his great surprise, they didn't seem much smaller in real life. He wrote to Olivier, asking for advice on a Chekhov play, and received a cordial reply. He met Albert Finney backstage and directed favorites such as Jacobi, Paul Scofield and Ian Holm.
There also was the time he was rehearsing for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and heard a famous voice intone, "I hear we're going to hear a bit of your Hamlet." It was John Gielgud, and the actor later made several useful suggestions.
"One thing about running up to some of those legends is their gift for absolute humility. There's nothing more exciting than to meet someone and they disarm you absolutely by being on your wavelength. They leave being even greater in your estimation," Branagh said.
"But I don't need to meet everybody. Woody Allen's a great hero of mine, but I don't necessarily want to meet him. I don't expect anything from him. He's a hero because of his work."
Branagh now is a star himself but isn't quite comfortable discussing it. He's only directed two pictures, after all, hardly enough for a good film festival. He's very much in the middle of things, thinking of future projects and of how much higher he has to climb, still able to imagine himself on either side of the screen.
"I'm still in the toddler stage," he said with a laugh. "I'm not even walking. When I'm watching, I'm thrilled by all the things that are possible, and it isn't, `Oh, I could use that shot.' I just like it.
"A picture like `GoodFellas' I adored. I was completely captivated, on every level. That's what I aspire to: A story matched by the execution."