Thursday, January 14, 2016

Alan Rickman: R.I.P.

Such sad news. Amazing British actor of stage and screen Alan Rickman, died yesterday, at the age of 69. Alan Rickman was a much-loved star of stage, TV, and films, including Harry Potter and Die Hard. He had been suffering from cancer for the past year. He was in two of my top films, Truly, Madly, Deeply and Galaxy Quest.

From The Guardian:

A star whose arch features and languid diction were recognizable across the generations, Rickman found a fresh legion of fans with his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. But the actor had been a big-screen staple since first shooting to global acclaim in 1988, when he starred as Hans Gruber, Bruce Willis’s sardonic, dastardly adversary in Die Hard – a part he was offered two days after arriving in Los Angeles, aged 41.
Gruber was the first of three memorable baddies played by Rickman: he was an outrageous sheriff of Nottingham in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as well as a terrifying Rasputin in an acclaimed 1995 HBO film.

But Rickman was also a singular leading man: in 1991, he starred as a cellist opposite Juliet Stevenson in Anthony Minghella’s affecting supernatural romance Truly, Madly, Deeply; four years later he was the honourable and modest Col Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, starring and scripted by Emma Thompson. He was to reunite with Thompson many times: they played husband and wife in 2003’s Love, Actually and former lovers in 2010 BBC drama The Song of Lunch
...

Rickman is still to be seen in Eye in the Sky, a thriller about drone warfare that won rave reviews at the Toronto film festival last year, and repeating his voiceover as Absolem the Caterpillar in Alice Through the Looking Glass, also due for release later this year.

READ MORE HERE.


3 comments:

Jane R said...

So sad. Such a versatile actor and maybe just a little under appreciated too. I've always enjoyed his characters.

vallery said...

this news hit me more than David Bowie. Rickman could do villains on a par with Christopher Walken. I first saw him in the Barchester Chronicles on Masterpiece theater-he was a very good looking smarmy villain. Of course he could lots of other characters. this is very sad.

Mary said...

Just watched him on Quigley Down Under last week (for about the 6th time). Always such a good actor and a pleasure to watch.