The movie that brought Alan Rickman’s career full circle
Regarded as one of Britain’s greatest character actors, Alan Rickman started out as a wide-eyed drama student eagerly studying the performances of the stars he would eventually share the screen with.
Making his screen debut as Tybalt in a 1978 production of Romeo & Juliet, Rickman didn’t become a household name until more than a decade later, thanks to his breakthrough role as Hans Gruber in Die Hard. Facing off against Bruce Willis’ hero cop John McClane, an iconically antagonistic turn established his reputation as an exceptional screen villain, in his movie debut no less.
Aware of falling victim to post-Die Hard typecasting, even when he was breaking bad, Rickman made sure to inject each of his villainous characters with a distinct flavour. The best example came when he hammed it up for the cheap seats in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, where his Sheriff of Nottingham turned overacting into an art form and won him a Bafta for ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
In later years, Rickman made a concerted effort to move away from out-and-out villainy, playing sci-fi and fantasy characters in Kevin Smith’s Dogma and voicing a depressed android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He also played Alexander Dane in the satirical spoof Galaxy Quest, in what quickly became known as one of his most popular turns, with the slumming Shakespearean actor lent plenty of self-referential heft by the star’s own background.
Rickman would then reach an entirely new audience in the early 2000s when he was cast as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter franchise. It kept him gainfully employed for a decade, but there were times when he’d been ground down so much by the blockbuster machine that he contemplated walking away from the series altogether.
Much to the chagrin and fury of readers around the world during the height of Harry Potter‘s literary popularity, Rickman was let in on the ground floor, becoming one of the select few who discovered Snape’s ultimate fate after insisting to author JK Rowling that knowing what was to come would aid his onscreen performances.
It might have been a fantasy saga that required him to sneer his way through withering put-downs and spend plenty of time standing in front of a green screen, but Harry Potter nonetheless marked a full-circle moment for Rickman, who found himself working closely with the very same people he’d admired from afar before he’d even started working as a professional actor.
“As a drama student and a schoolboy, I was sitting up in the cheap seats watching Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon at the National Theatre,” he told Oh No They Didn’t. “So to then find yourself working with them, them becoming friends. And, of course, Michael has the wickedest sense of humour, and Maggie is one of the wittiest people alive; I only regret I didn’t have a tape recorder or a notebook or could do shorthand; you can’t compete with those too; that was so fun.”
Rickman’s friendship with Smith and Gambon is reflective of the unique place that the Harry Potter franchise holds in British culture. The movies are a literal who’s who of stage and screen, encompassing multiple generations of acting talent, with the mutual appreciation society in full force when Rickman got to live out an experience he’d dreamed of growing up.
