Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickmanwas an English actor and director known for playing a variety of roles on stage and screen. Rickman trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in modern and classical theatre productions. His first big television part came in 1982, but his big break was as the Vicomte de Valmont in the stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, for which he was nominated...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth21 February 1946
CityLondon, England
Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.
If you judge the character, you cant play it.
I am the character you are not supposed to like.
Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.
So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.
Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.
I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.
I can only guess at the pressures of funding an independent theater company in New York, but calling this production 'postponed' does not disguise the fact that it has been canceled. This is censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences--all of us are the losers.
Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.
Acting is about giving something away, handing yourself over to whatever role you are asked to play. I'm not hiding or escaping or seeking anonymity. I reserve the right not to have a rubber stamp on my forehead saying this is who I am. Because who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.
I think the thing about film is, as it gets proved by a lot of young filmmakers now, that the medium will just go on reinventing itself, and so you just hope to be a part of that and not a part of some kind of endless regurgitation or 'Here I am doing what you know I do' kind of thing.
I'm a lot less serious than people think.
I have this feeling that if I could sort out what's on my dining room table, everything would fall into place.
Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.