The advice Alan Rickman gave Sam Rockwell about playing a villain: “He was the best”
In the annals of cinematic history, few actors have given the world better villains than Alan Rickman. The late acting genius was Hans Gruber in Die Hard, after all, one of the greatest bad guys in action movie history. However, his penchant for being deliciously dastardly didn’t end with Gruber. The man was also the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the vicious Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd, and, of course, the sinister bully Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, who turned out not to be a villain, per se, but was certainly an antagonist to everyone’s favourite wizard for most of the series.
All this is to say, if anyone knew what it took to play villainy in a compelling, nuanced way, it was Rickman. This is why, when Sam Rockwell starred with him in the egregiously underrated sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest in 1999, he knew exactly who to go to for advice.
You see, while making that movie, Rockwell was cast as Eric Knox in the big-screen update of ’70s TV show Charlie’s Angels. In that film, Knox is portrayed as a kidnapped software genius whom the Angels are tasked with rescuing, until it is revealed that it was all a ruse, and he is actually a criminal mastermind.
Rockwell, who had recently broken out with a role in The Green Mile, but had yet to play a part as big as Knox in a major Hollywood blockbuster, had ideas about how he wanted to play the character. He wasn’t sure if he was on the right track, though, so he tentatively asked Rickman if he would read the Charlie’s Angels script and give him some pointers.
He half expected the veteran performer to fob him off, but when he appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2024, he revealed, “He read the damn script.” With a warm smile and shake of the head, the White Lotus star added, “He was the best, you know?”
After ruminating on how strange it was that 17 writers worked on the Charlie’s Angels script, yet only two of them were women, Rockwell explained how he revealed his Knox master plan to Rickman. “I was like, ‘I want to have this disco thing, and I want to have, like, a cape, and this and that, and I want to be wild.” Then, with a grin that spread widely across his face, Rockwell recalled Rickman’s reaction, which was customarily low-key and very, very British. “He was like, ‘You know, Sam, when I did Die Hard, I killed someone and I ate a sandwich. Just keep it very simple. Very simple, Sam.'”
Naturally, this was hilarious for Rockwell to think back on, especially because he still threw some of his usual sauce and flamboyance at Knox, who memorably dances in the movie. However, he certainly didn’t go as far into caricature as he could have. Overall, he felt Rickman’s advice was a great example of his generous character. He would always offer his help; it just happened that the help came in amusingly deadpan form.
Rockwell must have formed a strong bond with Rickman on Galaxy Quest, too, because nearly 20 years later, when he won a BAFTA award for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, he dedicated it to the iconic thespian by signing off his speech with an emotional, “This is for my pal, Alan Rickman.”
