Kenneth Branagh has said it was the silence of lockdown last year that inspired him to write a story about his childhood in Belfast.
Arriving at the premiere of the movie, entitled Belfast, at the BFI London Film Festival, he said: "I think lockdown triggered differences in lots of people. It certainly made us very introspective.
"I started being sort of possessed by it as I walked the dog and heard the silence.
"The planes weren't flying and the cars weren’t driving, and in the sound of Belfast I’ve been hearing for about 50 years . . . as a famous composer once said when asked about how he wrote the music, he said, 'I listened and I wrote down what I heard’, so that’s what I tried to do.
"It came very fast but I was lucky enough to show the film to Christopher Nolan, a great filmmaker, who was very generous about it.
"He asked me how long it took me to write and I said, ‘Well about eight weeks’, and he said, ‘Eight weeks plus 50 years’."
