Alan__Rickman__

Harriet Walter: “Alan was never a nobody. Even when he was an unknown 32-year-old, when I first met him in the bar at the old Bush theatre, he seemed like somebody. “Oh, I’ve heard about you,” he drawled in that beautiful voice. His searchlight gaze had fallen on me and for that moment he made me feel like somebody. The first play I did with him was The Seagull at the Royal Court. I didn’t have to act Nina’s fascination with Trigorin. We also did a restoration comedy together. He was brilliantly funny both on and off stage. I don’t think he was easy to direct. He was too much of a director himself. You wanted to do your best for him. Praise from Alan, even then, counted far more than any critic’s review. I remember a phone call with him around that time, gossiping about any jobs we had been offered. I had plumped gratefully for the first thing that came my way, while Alan recited a list of roles he had turned down. He was paring down his choices with what I soon learned was an acute sense of where he was heading and where he was supposed to be. If this sounds offensive, it wasn’t. He was a rocket that was perfectly prepared but hadn’t yet been launched. When the part of Obadiah Slope in Barchester Chronicles came his way he recognised his moment and he pounced. Then there was Les Liaisons Dangereuses and then there was Die Hard playing Bruce Willis’s nemesis. Wow! My old mate Alan had become a film star – a fully fledged Somebody – and he took to that status as the proverbial duck to water. His generosity and kindness were legendary as was his brilliant sense of humour – a unique combination of wry sophistication and silliness that is evident in many of his film roles. When I worked with him again in Sense and Sensibility, although our characters didn’t meet we spent plenty of social time on location. Alan took care of me, made sure I dined with him and the top cast at the top tier hotel restaurant and paid for the cab back to my not quite top tier hotel some 10 miles away. He threw a birthday party for me in the year my partner died from cancer. He knew it would be a hard one for me. Alan elevated friendship to an art form. His friends grew in number throughout his extraordinary career but he never dropped his old pals in favour of more starry ones. He was unusually loyal. I marvelled at how he managed to see nearly all of our performances and wine and dine us afterwards. Stardom didn’t change him because he had always been a star, albeit a very well-grounded one. So much has happened in the world in the 10 years since he died. I miss his piercing intelligence now more than ever. It is terribly sad for all of us that he has gone but I am almost happy for him that he left when he did.” (‘The Guardian’, 14 January 2026)

Queen Elizabeth II opens new RADA building and chatting to people including Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Juliet Stevenson, alongside Richard Attenborough (RADA President) and other. London, 29 November 2000

~ 2002-2003

The 51st Golden Globe Awards, 22 January 1994 “Table tennis by the pool with Jon Amici (I can’t keep up with the roller coaster of his amours) and then a swim. Trip to the clothes shops (somewhat deserted) to buy something to wear tonight. Found and bought something to wear not tonight. So it’s off to the Golden Globes. An award show and all that that suggests. Genuinely funny speeches from the Seinfeld crew . . .” (“Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman diaries”)

“Michael Collins” interview, October 1996

BAM Next Society Dinner at the River Cafe, New York, 24 January 2011

“Alan Rickman admits to being "bemused" by the attention which Barchester has suddenly earned him. "I'm sure it's true of every successful actor - there's one a part which comes along and opens door," he says. "And yet, in a funny way, playing Slope was like a wonderful holiday. It was such a rich character that you could just take a great big dive into it. "There were only two weeks' - rehearsals before going on location, compared to other things where you have maybe eight weeks, so decisions had to be made very quickly about how to play it. Perhaps sometimes that's the best way to work." But, when he was offered the part, he almost turned it down. "I knew when I read it that it was a wonderful part," he says. "It took me rather a long time to accept it because I could see the potential danger that, after playing it, I'd never be offered any other sort of part. But in the end, it was too good to say no.” (‘The Standard’, January 1983)

Behind the scenes of “Bottle Shock“, 2007 Philippe Bergeron: “I had the pleasure and honor of working with Alan, on Bottle Shock. What a great actor. You could’t go wrong, working with him. And very funny in real life. I had asked him when the last time he auditioned for a part. And he shot me his signature glance, and said without a hint of a smile: Die Hard. That was precious. Here are a few set photos. The girls were so excited to meet Professor Snape! Sophie is 8, and Lilia is 4.” (Facebook, 2016) Jean-Michel Richaud: “So blessed to have worked with Alan Rickman. Total class act.” (Facebook, 2016)

“The main difference between playing a screen character and a stage role, Rickman says, has “to do with part of the English tradition of pantomime. To be able to work in two dimensions. We’ve all done that – come right out of Euripides, and then you find yourself playing ‘gray squirrel,’ being big and bright when necessary.”" (‘Boston Globe Magazine’, 1991) “After two years of rep, including squeezing himself into a squirrel’s costume for Christmas panto, Rickman hit his first lead role and his first sexually explicit love scene.” (‘Elle’, 1992) “Rickman spent four years working the length and breadth of England in repertory before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1979. During those journeyman years, in addition to suffering the embarrassment of playing a squirrel in a Christmas pantomime and having to sing “She’s Pooped Without Her Porridge,” he appeared in a wide range of rigorous roles, in such plays as Jarry’s Ubu Rex and Brecht’s Man is Man (at the Bristol Old Vic), as well as Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken (at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield).” (‘Lear’s Magazine’, 1992) “Babes in the Woods”, Library Theatre Company, Manchester, 1974 (Elizabeth Lewis’ photos)

The rehearsal of the play “The Winter Guest” at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, 1995

“Truly Madly Deeply“, 1990