Kenneth Branagh takes on action-comedy with ‘Mayday’ after Edinburgh Film Festival award

Kenneth Branagh arrived at the Edinburgh Film Festival on Aug. 17 to accept the event’s inaugural Outstanding Contribution to Cinema award from festival director Paul Ridd, and used the moment to sketch how his next film project marks a departure from the Shakespearean material that has dominated much of his career. Speaking to the audience at the ceremony, Branagh joked that he would try to break the honor “up into little pieces,” before adding that he was not actually planning to do so.

Branagh’s remarks quickly turned to his work on Mayday, an action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, which he described as an opportunity to move into a different tonal register than Shakespeare adaptations. He framed the project as a creative change, telling the audience that he had been drawn to the film’s shape and its approach to genre.

In discussing the cast and creative choices behind Mayday, Branagh said he had thought about Zach Galifianakis for “the part” and later expressed satisfaction that the filmmakers asked him instead. His comments, delivered as part of the award appearance, echoed Branagh’s broader theme that he is comfortable challenging expectations about the kind of films he will make.

The film festival setting emphasized the industry stature of the award. The Edinburgh Film Festival, according to the event description in the report, presented the Outstanding Contribution to Cinema prize as its inaugural honor, and Branagh’s appearance in Edinburgh served as the platform for the public remarks about Mayday.

Branagh’s comments also connected the ceremony to the practical realities of filmmaking, where casting and genre tone can dictate what a director can ultimately deliver on screen. While he did not outline specific plot details in the report, he placed the conversation about Mayday’s action-comedy approach in the context of his long-running interest in performance-driven storytelling.

The appearance came amid ongoing attention around Mayday as a major screen project, with Reynolds named in the report as part of the film’s lineup. With the Edinburgh Film Festival event functioning as a high-visibility industry stop, Branagh’s statement gave audiences and film stakeholders a clearer sense of the creative direction he is taking for his next major effort.

Following the ceremony, the next steps for the Mayday rollout would depend on the film’s release schedule and any additional festival or studio promotional activities, but the immediate development highlighted by the report was Branagh’s public framing of the project and his remarks about how Galifianakis entered the film’s plans.