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Kenneth Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards. He's starred in, written and/or directed films ranging from "Hamlet" and "Henry V" to "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and "Thor."

But he has returned again and again to television, starring as a Swedish detective in 12 installments of "Wallander" filmed over eight years.

"I grew up watching television, so it was a very important part" of life, Branagh said. "I didn't go to the theater. My family weren't theatergoers, but we did watch television. We went to the movies.

"I was just aware, especially in a pre-digital world, of how influential the shared conversation about art or entertainment you'd seen in your living room was. It was a part of what made up the rest of my daily life."

Branagh said he read the "Wallander" books "purely for pleasure." He actively campaigned for the role of Kurt Wallander, lobbying author Hanning Mankell for the role. And he has a definite affinity for the character.

He described "Wallander" as "this very satisfying meal that you take a while to sort of digest" because it "always seemed to be something that took its time. Part of what it did was to reflect."

"So the idea of keeping it alive in my creative life has been not just a sort of privilege, but a really pleasure."

He said playing the detective has always proven to be a challenge, and never more so than in the final three installments of what PBS is calling "Wallander: The Final Season." In the first 90-minute episode, "The White Lioness," Wallander travels to South Africa (where the production was filmed) to search for a missing Swedish woman — and the answer shakes up Sweden.

In the final two installments, "A Lesson for Love" and "The Troubled Man," Wallander returns to Sweden, where he searches for the daughter of a murdered woman and then for a missing ex-Swedish navy official — all while battling forgetfulness that is to become serious memory loss and leaving Wallander to wonder if, like his father, he's suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

It's a turn of events that is particularly frustrating for a man like Wallander because he "has to face the fact that his own particular isolationism … makes things pretty tricky if you are starting to become forgetful," Branagh said. "And if, like him, you are especially disposed to not share intimate details with your family, then I think the chance of being separate and isolated and paranoid happens very quickly."

Branagh said he talked to "a lot of people" about "the ways in which people who are dealing with dementia either hide from themselves what it is or certainly hide from their loved ones how serious the condition may be or how progressive it may be."

"So you try and be as honest and true and unfussy about it as someone like Kurt Wallander would be, I guess."

Branagh doesn't expect a curtain call after this season, largely because all the TV installments were based on Henning Mankell's Wallander books, and Mankell died in October.

"I think Henning would have said 'no,' " Branagh said. "He was very clear about that with the last book."

Branagh did not, however, entirely rule it out.

"If [Mankell] chose to feel that the, what you might call the sort of twilight world or the half-world or the half-light that Wallander may be living through as we leave him here — who's to say? — was one in which he was still consultable for a crime, then maybe there is something in that. I don't know," Branagh said. "I think that would be a Henning question. And now, I guess, Henning's family." —

On TV

The final three installments of "Wallander" air on three successive Sundays — May 8, 15 and 22 — at 8 p.m. on PBS/Ch. 7.