On January 14, 2016, the world learned with great sadness of the death of Alan Rickman, renowned actor with an unforgettable voice and prolific comedian on the boards of Broadway. But many of his bereaved fans knew him primarily for his brilliant, silent, and ambiguous portrayal of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter saga, a role for which he was always JK Rowling’s first choice in person. remembering the eight films to console himself, the British publisher Henry Holt & Company will publish on October 18 the diary of the actor, compiled by Emma Thompson in Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman, of which the Guardian shared some excerpts exciting, even very moving. Alan Rickman had started keeping a diary in the early 1970s, in which he notably recorded birthdays and other important appointments. But in 1992, his pocket notebook became a real cathartic outlet, where the actor noted much deeper and personal thoughts and resentments. Alan Rickman sometimes evokes his political opinions, his opinion on Hollywood dramas, the state of cinema at the time, and also confides in the Harry Potter saga, the role of Professor Snape, or his work with his acting partners and members of the film crew, from Daniel Radcliffe to director Alfonso Cuarón via his secret conversations with JK Rowling. “Daniel Radcliffe is not an actor” were working on the first film adaptations, the author had confided to Alan Rickman only Snape’s secret love for Lily Potter, the mother of the young sorcerer hero, protagonist of his novels. The idea was to convince him that the enigmatic journey The potions master’s dark and dark would last almost until the end of the novels, having secretly made the ultimate sacrifice of his life to be a double agent and protect Harry from Voldemort. Throughout the saga, J. K. Rowling and Alan Rickman had several discussions with the aim of convincing the latter that Snape was one of the most tortured and fascinating characters born in his imagination. In the following extracts, we discover a very tender facet of Alan Rickman. He particularly compliments Alfonso Cuarón’s artistic and original staging of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which he considers “an extraordinary piece of work”. Conversely, the actor could sometimes be quite harsh towards his peers like Daniel Radcliffe, whom he appreciates humanely but whom he does not consider “as an actor”, rather as a future director and/or producer. In the same vein, he sometimes wanted to “bang the heads of the three Davids against a wall” on the set of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in reference to producers David Heyman and David Barron as well as director David Yates, the writing and direction of which he did not always appreciate. But the most moving part of the diary goes back to the many times Alan Rickman almost left the Harry Potter adventure. First just after The Chamber of Secrets, then in 2005, between the releases of The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix. For this time, it is the period when he discovers to be suffering from a rare and violent form of prostate cancer, for which he underwent a major operation. In his diary, which reflects his strength of character, he explains the reasons that convinced him to play Professor Snape until the end: “Finally, I said yes to Harry Potter 5. I have the feeling that is neither good nor bad. But the argument that convinced me is this: ‘Go to the end, this story belongs only to you.’”The few excerpts shared by the Guardian already allow us to better perceive the sometimes confused relationship , even suffocating, between Alan Rickman and the overwhelming popularity of the Harry Potter saga. You may not find the way to lock death in a vial, but a heartfelt and touching truth about the man behind the wizard’s robe.
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