British actor Alan Rickman has died after a battle with cancer. He was 69. Hero Complex spoke with Rickman in 2011 to discuss the end of the “Harry Potter” franchise and his years as Severus Snape.
No one sneers or snarls quite like Alan Rickman and, looking back on a cinematic decade of “Harry Potter,” his Severus Snape now stands as the franchise’s most fascinating figure after being revealed in the eighth film as misunderstood double-agent motivated by long-lost love.
According to David Yates, the director of the final four “Potter” movies, there was a similar sort of aura around Rickman on the set when he wore the black robes and sour scowl of his character even when the cameras weren’t rolling.“My early reaction to Alan was, ‘Wow, he’s really prickly and quite unpleasant,’” Yates said during a recent Los Angeles visit. “But there’s a method to his madness. I realized that he has to get in that zone when he’s on the set. When I finally met him away from the job, he was a lovely guy. I don’t know that he shows that to everyone, though. I think Alan is also shy — painfully shy, in fact — and he believes his craft should have an element of mystery to it. He sees no value in talking about it too much or dissecting it too much.”
Perhaps, but reached by phone in New York, Rickman was more than willing to express his affection for the “Potter” creative team and cast. He spoke fondly of the three young stars at the center of the magical epic — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint — and cited “the unique experience” of “watching the movies grow up with the children” as the years brought a darker story tone and evolving cast dynamic.
“It was a punctuation mark in my life every year because I would be doing other things but always come back to that, and I was always aware of my place in the story even as others around me were not,” Rickman said. “Am I sad? The point about a great story is that it’s got a beginning, a middle and end. The ending of this story was quite popular and beautifully judged by Jo Rowling and David Yates, so it’s not a cause for sadness; it’s a cause for celebration that it was rounded off so well.”
Rickman’s Hogwarts odyssey was singular in one major way: Early on, years before the ending of the book series, “Potter” author J.K. Rowling took him aside and revealed the secret back story of Snape, trusting Rickman and Rickman alone with one of the biggest twists in contemporary popular fiction. That set up the actor up to portray Snape as something more complicated (and more tragic) than mere a black-caped villain.
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