'Always' in Our Hearts: The Seven Shades of Alan Rickman | Explained

A new Google Doodle has honoured the late actor Alan Rickman while also commemorating the 36th anniversary of a role that is thought to have launched his career. On April 30, 1987, Rickman made his Broadway debut as Vicomte de Valmont in a performance of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Today’s Google Doodle honours this period in the late actor’s career. Google describes it as “instrumental in launching his career” because it was one of his earliest leading stage performances. Read more on this here

Known in popular media as ‘Professor Snape’, the famed role he played in the Harry Potter series based on JK Rowling’s books, he touched lives before his death due to pancreatic cancer in January 2016.

A look at his life and some famous roles he played:

‘Always’

Even with a long illustrious career behind him, Rickman inspired a whole new generation with his portrayal of the sordid, and yet by the end of the series, beloved, Professor Severus Snape.

The antagonistic teacher, always ruffling Harry Potter’s sensibilities, was thought to be a co-conspirator in Lord Voldemort’s devious plans. However, by the end of the series, his selfless actions, beautifully portrayed by Rickman with the same elegant stillness of character he has shown in previous roles, won hearts.

I mean, who would not remember the haunting ‘Always’ line delivery he made.

As per Goliath, the job was originally offered to actor Tim Roth. Instead, Roth opted to star in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, making way for Rickman. According to Roth, his version of Snape would have been considerably different, but he believes “it was the right decision to cast Rickman since Alan’s had some success with the character.”

Another interesting fact mentioned in the report is that author JK Rowling told him about the character’s true loyalties long before the rest of the world did. Rickman not only never revealed what he knew to anyone. He genuinely used the information to improve his performance, which irritated his directors.

series producer David Heyman mentioned told the LA Times in an interview that, “It was quite amusing, too, because there were times when a director would tell Alan what to do in a scene and he would say something like, ‘No I can’t do that — I know what is going to happen and you don’t.’”

His ‘Different’ Voice

According to the Goliath report, the reason behind Rickman’s distinctive voice was a childhood disability. His bottom jaw was extremely tight, causing his sentences to sound hazy and muffled. However, those particular features made him distinctive in his dialogue delivery. The report mentions a scientific research from 2008, which said that Rickman ‘had the perfect voice’. The study used a combination of tone, speed, frequency, words per minute, and intonation to determine this.

His Singing

Those who have watched Tim Burton’s Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Johnny Depp and Rickman, would have gotten a taste of the famed actor’s singing.

This was despite Rickman getting a bad review from his drama teacher in his early years. “What did they say to me? You sound – Alan, you sound as if your voice is coming under the back end of the drain pipe was one review from my voice teacher,” Rickman told NPR in an interview.

However, his singing did not make him any less formidable in the role. Throughout his film career, Rickman played a variety of villains where he used his deep voice to inspire horror in roles ranging from Hans Gruber in Die Hard to Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, a legacy that continued in Sweeney Todd.

A ‘Theatric’ Start

Alan Rickman’s first job was as an artist, although dabbling in drama as a youth. He and a few friends founded Graphitti after his studying graphic design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, followed by graduate programmes at the Royal College of Art, according to a report by Mental Floss.

Despite his success in graphic design, Rickman admits that “theatre was always lurking in the background.” So, while still employed as a graphic designer, he wrote to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, requesting an audition. “I was getting older, and I thought, if you really want to do this, you’ve got to get on with it,” he told GQ in 1992.

He was 26 years old when he auditioned for the famed acting institution with a speech from Richard III and was offered a scholarship. “My body finally sighed with relief at finally being in the right place,” he explained. “I had finally arrived home.”

Rickman’s major break came on the stage, where he played Vicomte de Valmont in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1985 production of Les Liaisons Dangereuse, the report explains. When the play transferred to Broadway in 1987, Rickman was nominated for both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his performance.

First Film Role

With his Hollywood debut in 1988’s Die Hard, Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, the meticulous mastermind behind the Christmas Eve Nakatomi Tower heist in the film was dubbed the greatest action movie villain in Hollywood history, as per a report by Entertainment Weekly.

Despite the fact that Die Hard was Rickman’s feature film debut, he reportedly (and rather successfully) pushed writers Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, producer Joel Silver, and director John McTiernan to reimagine the film’s antagonist as a more suave and urbane and less militaristic character to better suit his strengths.

His ‘Romantic Side’

The New York Film Academy mentions his performance in the romantic film ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ as

“Although Rickman would become known for a number of bad guy-type roles over the course of his career, he was also to become known for his great versatility as evidenced here with his a performance that tugged on the heartstrings of critics and audiences alike,” the report says.

Rickman in the film plays Jamie, a ghost who appears to help his girlfriend Nina who is overcome with grief following his death.

He was equally romantic in real life. Rickman met his first love, 18-year-old Rima Horton, when a student at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1965. Rima Horton served as a Labour Party councillor on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council from 1986 until 2006. Though the couple did not marry until 2012 in a private ceremony in New York, they remained a devoted couple for more than 50 years, until his death.

His Diary

Alan Rickman began keeping a pocket journal in 1972, noting appointments, anniversaries, opening nights, and addresses. In 1992, he began to create a far more detailed account of his life and work, purchasing diaries from a nearby stationer’s that offered him a page a day to play with. There are 26 books in total, with several of them being colourfully and brilliantly drawn, a report by the Guardian says.

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