Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1” (2010) Photo courtesy Warner Bros. / The Hollywood Archive
Sad news, The Guardian reports that Alan Rickman, one of the best-loved and admired British actors of the past 30 years, has died in London aged 69. His death was confirmed on Thursday by his family who said that he died “surrounded by family and friends”. Rickman had been suffering from cancer.
Rickman played some of the industry’s iconic ominous characters. Among his many stage and screen performances, notable roles included Hans Gruber, the nefarious mastermind of “Die Hard,”, Severus Snape, the dour master of potions in the “Harry Potter” series and The Sheriff of Nottingham in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”
In an interview with CNN about his first film role as German terrorist Gruber, opposite Bruce Willis’ John McClane, in 1988’s “Die Hard.” Rickman said that he had been in Hollywood only two days, but he almost didn’t take the role. In the 2015 interview, Rickman recounted shaping the role. Initially fitted with a militaristic outfit as the terrorist leader, Rickman suggested that perhaps Gruber could wear a suit use an American accent and pretend to be a civilian trapped in the building for a scene with Willis’ McClane character. He said he was told, “You’ll wear what you’re told.” “But then I came back, and they handed me the new script” that included the revisions. “So you know, it just pays to occasionally use a little bit of theater training when you’re doing a movie.”
Emma Thompson, who appeared with Rickman in productions including “Sense and Sensibility,” “Love, Actually” and was directed by him in “The Winter Guest,” told BBC News he was “the finest of actors and directors” and “the ultimate ally”. She wrote in a statement: “Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye. “What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humor, intelligence, wisdom and kindness.”His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word. The intransigence which made him the great artist he was – his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him.”She added: “He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.