Alan Rickman Quotes

Talent is an accident of genes, and a responsibility.

It’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

Why don't I like you?" "Because you think I'm an asshole, and I'm not really, I'm just British and, well, you're not.

A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

She didn't care about wizards, but she thought Alan Rickman was dreamy.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

When I'm 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I'll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, 'After all this time?' And I will say, 'Always.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

Benedict Cumberbatch is like Alan Rickman Benjamin Buttoning.

Do you know that moment when you paint a landscape as a child and, when you’re maybe under seven or something, the sky is just a blue stripe across the top of the paper? And then there’s that somewhat disappointing moment when the teacher tells you that the sky actually comes down in amongst all the branches. And it’s like life changes at that moment and becomes much more complicated and a little bit more boring, as it’s rather tedious to fill in the branches…

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don’t expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few who cherish… I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.” — Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

There is nothing wrong with a man being a Feminist, I think it is to our mutual advantage.

Very nice lady served us drinks in hotel and was followed in by a cat. We all crooned at it. Alan [Rickman] to cat (very low and meaning it): 'Fuck off.' The nice lady didn't turn a hair. The cat looked slightly embarrassed but stayed.

I hate it when my head, heart and aspirations are filled to the brim only with career. The rest of me hangs around like a jacket on the back of a doorknob.

Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.

It is an ancient need to be told in stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

Jurassic Park—what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs.

One does not simply watch Harry Potter movies without praising Alan Rickman!

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

If only life could be a little more tender & art a little more robust.” Alan Rickman.

There was never a day, however, that Alan Rickman wasn’t to be seen in full, flowing Snape robes, holding his tray and queuing up in the canteen for his lunch like everyone else. I was rather intimidated by Alan from day one. It took three or four years for me to manage more than a slightly terrified and squeaky “Hi Alan!” whenever I saw him. But seeing him wait patiently, in full Snape mode, for his sausage sandwich took the edge off just a little.

The hotel is just Budapest, America. Imported phones, lamps, cupboards etc. God forbid Americans should feel they are somewhere ELSE.

I am surrounded by people nervous of their own opinions.

God, all those months of seeing Kelsey’s pictures and hearing about her travels, and I had been raging with jealousy. And now it was my turn. I wanted to mind the gap at the tube station and eat fish and chips and try to make the Queen’s guards laugh. I wanted to see Big Ben and the Globe and the London Bridge and Dame Judi Dench. Or Maggie Smith. Or Alan Rickman. Or Sir Ian McKellen. Or anybody famous and British, really. Holy crap. This was really happening. And I wasn’t just a tourist. I was visiting with someone who’d grown up in the city. With my fiancé. Take that, world.

7:15 Montpelier - excellent dinner. Would have been perfect if only I'd had a handgun for the other guests: 'Of course communism was always bound to fail.

Savoy Grill with Emma[Thompson]. A very easy, enjoyable meal with an easy enjoyable person. She says 'fuck' a lot. Much laughter.

Completely knackered. All that politeness.

His hair—cut your fucking hair already, you’re not Alan Rickman—was lank.

Good food but on my top ten hate list would be over-attentive waiters – I like watching my wine glass get emptier. I am close to slapping the arm of the next waiter who refills my glass after every sip.

Is this control, depression or exhaustion?

Alan. You never knew if you were going to be kissed or unsettled. But you couldn’t wait to see what would come next.

Awake trying to locate one worthwhile, nameable emotion that deserves this sleeplessness

Still, it was impossible to deny: Going all the way to London without taking time out to attend a few horrendous plays was like making a special trip to Hell without ever asking to meet Satan. So this time around, I decided to plunge in headfirst. Never a fan of Noel Coward, I nonetheless reported to the Albery Theatre, forked over a king’s ransom for a good seat, and watched Alan Rickman act up a storm in Private Lives.

It was Alan Rickman and I was terrified, not because of the menace he exuded as Severus Snape, but because I loved the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was obsessed with Alan’s performance as the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham. To be in the same room as the Sheriff himself was enough to penetrate even my veneer of schoolboy cockiness.

I wish these lounges weren’t so devoted to the bored & boring. Perhaps there could be a door marked Eccentrics and Weirdos Only.

Actors are great people, and special and funny & self-denigrating, so fuck you anyone who disagrees.

He was generous and challenging. Dangerous and comical. Sexy and androgynous. Virile and peculiar. Temperamental and languid. Fastidious and casual.

I must try not to be sucked into other people’s problems when all it does is drain my energy.

Alan was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.

Favoured holiday destinations were the Caribbean and South Africa.

Jurassic Park - what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs.

The trouble with death is that there is no next. There is only what was and for that I am profoundly and heartbrokenly grateful.

and watched Alan Rickman act up a storm in Private Lives. Someone once said that this highly mannered actor had made a career out of being brilliant in roles where no brilliance was required.

Unless we tell stories about ourselves, which is all that theater is, we’re in deep trouble. It’s an age-old human need. The lights go down, our thumbs go in our mouths, and someone says, “Once upon a time.” And we believe it.

Alan Rickman had to drop into a blue screen stretched over a bag. It might have been 30 feet, which is plenty scary. You’d break your back, especially if you were untrained, but this is the thing about it: What you see on his face when he lets go is real fear. It’s one of the greatest shots ever.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.

Phone call from LA is from such another world—can they cannibalise me even more from Die Hard for DH3?

Re-reading some pages of this diary is like looking at a graph of an exhausted mind.

Although ‘vulnerable’ and ‘lonely’ are different words, they’re in the same language as ‘melancholy’.

Why was I dreaming about having got myself a Saturday job at Woolworth's??

I want something to come at me not to be always looking, probing, hoping, reaching.

The book is right – do the difficult stuff first, otherwise you waste so much time avoiding it.

It seems sometimes to be in the stars that some days are peaceful and some are manic.

We are our own worst enemies when we take ourselves that seriously. But then the world wants to film it. Apes picking fleas from each other.

The trouble with death is that there is no next.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

That’s it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

Apart from that his mind as quixotic and lightning sharp as always.

We stopped in Montreal for an hour then on to Pittsburgh and the William Penn Hotel. The burst through that tunnel still as thrilling.

What the fuck is all this insomnia—the pillow? the mattress? The whole Feng Shui of it all?

Talking with journalists always leaves me feeling uneasy and a little like those tribes who don’t like having photos taken because they’re giving away their souls. But today there is a strong sense of colliding with one’s destiny.

He met Rima Horton when she was fifteen and he was a year older; both were keen on amateur dramatics. Friends for several years, they became a couple around 1970 and remained together for the rest of Alan’s life, marrying in 2012.

Watch Shawshank Redemption. ‘Expertly done’ would be the review. Not a foot wrong. Classy. I just wish this had not extended even to the immaculate hairdos of all the inmates. When will a director tell a hair person to STOP tidying everyone up—it’s an awful reflex action.

Sometimes the sensation of being a personal launderette service—friendship must not become a space for indulgence. Listening to casting problems, rehearsal problems, photograph problems. There is a point at which they walk away stronger and you are exhausted. This cannot be right …

23 January On the way home, a visit - forced - to Dean Street Tesco. What a dump this chain is. Reduced their staff as much possible in favour of shoppers checking their own food out, cabinets missing items, one variety of fruit and a 15 minute wait for one of the few attendants to go get a bottle of vodka. A must to avoid. A sort of shopping equivalent of our shoddy government.

Everyone has a story with coca-cola people like Wayne Dyer even and people like Alan Rickman and many other people, so... they are dead so you can take it Coca-Cola is part of the history!

174) Intimidating Snape Harry was so scared of Alan Rickman because “he was so fantastic at what he did I was freaked” that he had to keep telling himself “it's only a film, it's only a film ... nothing's real”.

And so many No's - Bee Holm's film "Awfully Big Adventure", the Rankin film, "Jack and Sarah", directing "The Tin Soldier", running Nottingham Playhouse. Fate is running around throwing hands in the air.

9ish Die Hard. Ten years on. It still works like none of the others. Real energy, perfect camera work, wit and style.

NB Harry Potter is offered …

10 OCTOBER HARRY POTTER BEGINS.

12.30 pick-up to the set and putting Snape together. Ultimate result—tighter arms, legs, waist, bluer hair, no contact lenses. But Snape seems to live.

The Die Hard 3 Saga goes on. Litigation lawyers now come in. Watching The Politician’s Wife on Channel 4. Compulsive viewing—especially if Juliet’s character starts to kick back. Ghastly script, but hugely enjoyable.

Clear enough in Last Words—the book given to me by the museum manager. They were all so proud to die. They knew when it was coming [and] what it was for. Strange walking in the footsteps, too, copying de Valera’s letter to Mother Gonzaga31 (he has been told he is to be shot). This is beginning to feel like something I just have to hand myself over to—it will take care of itself. Hidden forces are very strong. I’m sitting in his cell, writing a letter to Michael Collins, the dust filling the slash of sunlight. That glimpse of a changing sky must have meant everything.

America swallows up another culture and turns it (literally) into a golf course with pedalos and lounge bars and grills and happy hours.

Are you serious right now? Have you not seen Alan Rickman’s transcendent turn as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 classic Robin Hood Prince of Thieves?

I hate last nights, last shots, goodbyes.

A regular feature of a day’s filming would be visitors to set. They would generally be children and mostly the visits would be in aid of a children’s charity. Alan Rickman requested by far the most visits for charities that he supported. It seemed to me that he had a group in almost every day. And if anyone understood what a child wanted from a trip to the Harry Potter set, it was him. None of our visitors were that interested in meeting Daniel, Rupert, Emma or, for that matter, me. They wanted to meet the characters. They wanted to put on Harry’s glasses, to get a high five from Ron or a cuddle from Hermione. And since Daniel, Rupert and Emma were so similar in real life to their idea of the characters, they never disappointed. It was different for us Slytherins. I might have got the role of Draco in part because of the similarities between us, but I liked to think that I was not so Draco-esque that I’d be unpleasant to a group of nervous, excited youngsters. So I’d greet them, all smiles, and be as friendly and welcoming as I could be. “Hi, guys! Are you having fun? What’s your favourite set?” And crikey did I get that wrong. Without exception they’d look aghast and confused. Draco being a nice bloke was as anathema to them as Ron being a dickhead. They didn’t quite know how to process it. Alan understood this implicitly. He understood that while they might want to meet Alan Rickman, they’d much rather meet Severus Snape. Whenever he was introduced to these young visitors, he gave them the full Snape experience. They’d receive a clip round the ear and a terse, drawn-out instruction to tuck… your… shirt… in! The kids would be wide-eyed and joyfully terrified. It was a lovely thing to watch. I’d learn, as the years progressed, that some people find it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, between fantasy and reality. Sometimes that could be trying. But I wish I’d had Alan’s confidence to remain in character during some of those meet and greets at Leavesden Studios. There’s no doubt that in doing so, he brightened many a day.

The trouble with death is that there is no next. There is only what was and for that I am profoundly and heartbrokenly grateful.

Then some Paris wandering. Shoe shops, coffee bars—chairs pointing outwards at the world—it is a city where you need never be embarrassed by being alone in a café.

Of all the contradictions in my blissfully contradictory friend, this is perhaps the greatest—this combination of profoundly nurturing and imperturbably distant.

We also have a screaming match about the fact that the extras are given rolls as a midday meal. Food was duly served in the evening.

Gruber seems to possess a strange fatalism, as if he expects to lose, and to die, all along.

Wonderful aggressive wit, vulnerability pouring from his eyes.

Should anyone attempt to pay for a meal they were often rebuffed with two words, ‘Harry’ and ‘Potter’.

Apparently I upset Elaine Paige on Election Day. My casual cruelty again.

Why is this destructive side so unstoppable, feeding so voraciously on itself, victor in absolutely nothing. It’s just a film.

Whatever law it is, or thinks it is, which says that families must gather together and get on on a particular day should be repealed or blown apart

My brain had long packed its bags so we may have to have the discussion again with proper sentences.

I realise as soon as that [Snape’s] ring and costume go on – something happens. It becomes alien to be chatty, smiley, open. The character narrows me down, tightens me up. Not good qualities on a film set. I have never been less communicative with a crew. Fortunately, Dan [Radcliffe] fills that role with ease and charm. And youth.

How can I curb this ability to distance and intimidate? It is not helpful but it enforces a bit of a process.

The walls we are surrounded by, the objects we fill the spaces with, the lives they all describe.

A truly attractive woman, in the real sense of light in the eyes attractive, and smart and funny. No wonder she doesn't have a man.