The “terrible” movie script Alan Rickman was forced to rewrite
As far as British acting icons go, they didn’t get much bigger than the legendary Alan Rickman. A true stalwart of everything great about British cinema who also experienced success on the other side of the Atlantic, the London-born actor possessed a simmering intensity that led to some of the most intense performances of the last four decades.
That intensity naturally came from Rickman’s beginnings in the theatre, having trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later becoming a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Eventually, Rickman would make his film debut in the brilliant Die Hard as one of the most memorable movie villains of all time, the German terrorist Hans Gruber.
Rickman had actually nearly turned Die Hard down because he’d been unsure about taking on an action movie, but by the time he’d agreed to take the role of Gruber, he set about making the character his own. In fact, Rickman had made suggestions to the film’s producer, Joel Silver, about how Gruber ought to be portrayed, and though they were initially rejected, they made their way into the final cut.
This kind of fearlessness in giving a film its best qualities would again be employed by Rickman when he took on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991. Directed by Kevin Reynolds, the film tells the classic tale of Robin Hood, with Kevin Costner in the lead role and the likes of Morgan Freeman and Will Slater in support, while Rickman himself played the Sherriff of Nottingham.
Rickman’s performance was well-praised upon the film’s release, but the screenplay and overall production were criticised. Interestingly, though, things might have been worse for Prince of Thieves if it weren’t for Rickman and some of his friends going behind the film’s writers’ backs and rewriting some “terrible” pieces of dialogue.
In an interview with The Times, Rickman claimed to have met up with Peter Barnes in a branch of Pizza Express to look over his lines of dialogue. He noted, “I said, ‘Will you have a look at this script because it’s terrible, and I need some good lines.’ So he did, and, you know, with kind of pizza and bacon and egg going all over the script.”
One scene in particular got a new treatment from Barnes, a moment where Rickman’s character runs down a corridor full of sex workers. Barnes had told the actor, “You should have a wench in a doorway, and then you should say, ‘You. My room, 10.30,’ and then turn to the other wench and say, ‘You, 10.45’.”
Suddenly, Rickman’s character had a bit more flair and panache. When Ruby Wax got involved and added the line, “and bring a friend,” the Sherriff of Nottingham became a very saucy man indeed, lending Rickman more facets of personality to get his teeth into.
When it came time to shoot the scene in question, Rickman hadn’t told anyone of the changes he’d made to the script apart from director Reynolds, who added them in. “Nobody knew this was happening except him,” Rickman admitted. “And I knew it had worked because as I cleared the camera, I saw about 80 members of the crew [try not to laugh].”
