...I met with a very great old acting teacher called David William... He said, “So the purpose of this audition is to see if you have any connection with the numinous.” I had no idea what he meant. We were doing Hal’s speech, “I know you all, and will awhile uphold the unyoked humor of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun.” The reveal is of a man with a plan to become the greatest king of all. He made me understand, as we did it again and again, that it was something that this young man was planning, but something over which he had no control. Something otherworldly. Something numinous. So I was beginning to understand what that word meant or evoked, and understand that Shakespeare unlocked that. He had this thing which great poetry and great music has, which is it goes beyond words. Beyond the conscious and into the experiential.
Kenneth Branagh
