Q&A; Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh plays Franklin Roosevelt in HBO's Warm Springs, airing April 30.

The film focuses on F.D.R.'s crippling battle with polio. Are those your real calves? No. It's prosthetics and computers. Oh, thank God. Sweetly put, though. I'm blessed or cursed with rugby-player legs.

Is it easier to play an American icon when you're not an American? I was a big admirer of F.D.R. He saved Britain. Maybe there's some measure of objectivity. He didn't have that hard R Americans have. [In a loud, nasal voice] "The only thing we have to fe-uh is fe-uh itself!"

Maybe because of all the Shakespeare, maybe because of the intelligent women you've been linked to, some Americans see...

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