ovie-goers caught their first sight of Alan Rickman in 1988 in the action thriller Die Hard. At the age of 42, antediluvian by Hollywood standards, he was cast as Hans Gruber, a Teutonic terrorist who has seized control of a Los Angeles skyscraper and taken hostages. Acting opposite Bruce Willis’s NYPD detective, Rickman stole the show with his devil-may-care interpretation of a psychopath and received a deluge of plaudits.
It was post-Robin Hood that Rickman began keeping his diary in earnest. What follows is an edited account of his next few early years on screen, pre-Harry Potter, and a return to the stage opposite Helen Mirren in Antony and Cleopatra.Lunch on the set. A last-dayish atmosphere. Then to the aquarium. Freezing water and, strangely enough, very wet; a frogman grabbing my ankles; eyes open; blood on the forehead; staring. It takes a while.
Carrie Fisher is there, funny and fast. Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson, Zoë Wanamaker, Joanna Lumley, John Sessions. Someone asks Jennifer S what she does. The inevitable late night row …Labour party European gala dinner. John Smith, Robin Cook, Tony Blair all say hello. Many an encounter, many a speech. Gordon Brown looking sooo bored.
John Smith is dead. Last night I spoke with him. We all know he would have been a great leader. His competence and humour and quiet strength didn’t sell newspapers until they became his epitaphMeet Fiona [Shaw] & Deborah [Warner] – one of the major terrible twos in the art world. Hildegard [Bechtler] joins and we’re on the train to Glyndebourne. When you get there – there it all is – a bit of little Olde England still determinedly putting out its collapsible chairs, sandwiches, champagne. I kept thinking “someone with a machine gun will appear any minute”.
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