Who is Alan Rickman

Who is Alan Rickman? 

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born February 21, 1946) is an Emmy-, Golden Globe-, BAFTA- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning English film, television and stage actor. He is perhaps best known to film audiences for his roles as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films and Hans Gruber in Die Hard. He also featured prominently as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 blockbuster, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. More recently, Rickman portrayed Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Career
3 In the media
4 Personal life
5 Filmography and awards
6 References
7 External links



[edit] Early life
Rickman was born Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman in Hammersmith, London to a working-class family. His mother, Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), was a Methodist Welsh housewife, and his father, Bernard Rickman, was an Irish Catholic factory worker.[1][2] He has one older brother, a younger brother and a sister. His father died when Rickman was eight, leaving his mother to raise their four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life".[2] Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in London, where he started getting involved in drama. Despite his passion for acting, after graduating, Rickman attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and made his way as a graphic designer, which he considered a more stable occupation. "Drama school," he said "wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18." Rickman received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) which he attended from 1972-1974. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself working as a dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson,[3] and left after winning several prizes such as the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal. Since then, he has become one of Britain's most distinguished and versatile stage and screen actors.[4]


[edit] Career
After graduating from the RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo And Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It. He would be the male lead in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Christopher Hampton, which would be a sellout.[5] When the show went across the Atlantic in 1986, Rickman went with it to Broadway and there earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance.[6]

"You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't-You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking 'that was nice...now where's the cab?'"[7]

While with the RSC he shared a house with fellow RSC member Ruby Wax. Rickman put her into writing comedy and proceeded to direct several of her successful shows. "If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work", he said.[2]

To television audiences he also became known as Mr. Slope in the BBC's 1980s adaptation of Barchester Towers. He played future Irish Taoiseach and president Éamon de Valera in the film Michael Collins alongside Liam Neeson. While playing romantic leads in British movies (Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility; Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply), he was generally typecast in Hollywood films as an over-the-top villain (German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Best Heroes/Villains" as the 46th best villain in film history.


Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die HardRickman demonstrated his talent as a comedic actor in films such as Galaxy Quest, Dogma, and Love Actually. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as Rasputin in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. He played a crucial role in the Harry Potter films as the Potions professor Severus Snape. Rickman was cast in 2005 as the voice of Marvin in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. Coincidentally, Rickman and David Learner, who occupied Marvin's costume for the TV adaptation and stage shows, studied together at RADA. He was very busy in 2006 with Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.


Alan Rickman has performed on stage in Noel Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star, Lindsay Duncan, and director, Howard Davies for this Tony Award winning production.

His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from October 20th to December 3rd, 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua. He directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995. He also directed the film version in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law.

Rickman has also been featured in several musical works-most notably in a song composed by the English songwriter Adam Leonard. Moreover, the actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part in announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell. Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002-released When Love Speaks CD, and is also featured prominently in a music-video by the band Texas entitled In Demand, which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000. In the video, Sharleen Spiteri (the lead singer of Texas) danced the tango with Rickman: the clip was nominated for Best British Video at the Brit Awards. Spiteri said about the choice of Rickman for the clip ; "I thought it had to be someone who would be believable, who would rip your coat off and pull you into the tango, so I thought Alan Rickman!"[citation needed]


Rickman as Severus SnapeRickman played Severus Snape, the sinister wizard-schoolmaster of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, in the five films of that series to date. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named him one of their favorite people in pop culture, saying that in the Harry Potter films, "he may not be on screen long - but he owns every minute," and that he is capable of "turning a simple retort into a mini-symphony of contempt."[8]

Rickman directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for best director. The production is based on the writings of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American woman who was killed on March 16, 2003 by an Israeli armored bulldozer. The show played at the West End's Playhouse Theatre in London from March to May 2006. The play also ran at both the Galway Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Fesitval in 2006.

In 1995 Rickman turned down the role of Alec Trevelyan in the 1995 James Bond film Goldeneye, more than likely as a rule of staying away from villain roles. Rickman continues to show dismay over journalists[attribution needed] repeatedly labeling him as a villain actor, citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991, and pointing out that he has continued to portray characters of complex and varying emotions, and does not think it is fair to assign characters a label of good or evil, hero or villain.[1] The media has also dogged him in recent years for his thoughts on his role in the Harry Potter series, an irritation to him as he feels the press are too interested in Snape to pay attention to his other work.[citation needed] However, he is very much admired by his Harry Potter fans for the protection he has shown for his character in the series, as he continues to cite a fear of ruining the mystery of the character for the fans by talking about him. It is known that prior to the book release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Rickman had spoken on occasion about Snape quite easily, but with the controversy of the character following the events of the sixth book, Rickman refused to speak on the character anymore.[9]


[edit] In the media
Rickman was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (No 34) in 1995 and ranked No 59 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997. Rickman became Vice-Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2003. He was voted No 19 in Empire magazine's Greatest Living Movie Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and in 2002 for a revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives. Recently, Rickman has been heavily linked to succeeding David Tennant as the Eleventh Doctor in the cult series Doctor Who. Reports suggest Rickman is being lined up to replace Tennant in 2009.


[edit] Personal life
Alan Rickman resides with his partner of 40 years, Rima Horton. They do not have children and reside in London near Paddington Station.