A Farewell to a Gentleman Actor

Colonel Brandon, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Professor Severus Snape, Hans Gruber. Alan Rickman didn’t just play these characters, he created them.  “Jo” Rowling, as he called the author of the Harry Potter books, is the first to recognize how much Rickman added to Severus Snape, the character he played for so many years in the Harry Potter films. And I believe there will never be a better Sheriff for Robin Hood, nor a better Colonel Brandon to make Mary Anne regain her faith in humanity and all of us Jane Austen readers to wish such a man would come along to save us from despair and disappointment.

Rickman was an artist in every sense of the word. He didn’t begin acting until he was 28 –he was a graphic designer before that- and he didn’t make a film until he was 41. His first film was a very Hollywood action movie, Die Hard, but it was that much better because of his portrayal of Hans Gruber, who went on to be considered among the top movie villains of all time.

 Alan Rickman was also a very good director, directing two great women and friends of his: Emma Thompson in The Winter Guest (1997) and Kate Winslet in A Little Chaos (2014). How much sadder does it feel to see that his art grew and that we know he had so much more to give us!

There are two films that Alan has left behind, which we will see with the same heart break that we saw the films that “outlived” Philip Seymour Hoffman or listen to David Bowie's Blackstar, released just a couple of days before his death. The first is Eye in the Sky, in which he stars alongside Helen Mirren and Aaron Paul, playing Lieutenant General Frank Benson, the man placed as a go-between Mirren's military Colonel and the board of government representatives tasked with the ultimate decision of whether ridding East Africa of some of its most dangerous militants is worth the death an innocent young girl. The second is Alice through the Looking Glass where he voices (with that incredible and inimitable voice of his!) the blue caterpillar.

He has been immortalized by his films, yet we will miss him dearly.