-
I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.
Alan Rickman -
You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.
Alan Rickman
-
I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.
Alan Rickman -
I like it when stories are left open.
Alan Rickman -
I was a student in London in the '70s, so CBGB really wasn't on my radar at all. Obviously, I was aware of the emergence of the Police in England and as an art student, I was very aware of David Byrne, but I suppose my musical taste at that time certainly didn't stretch towards the Dead Boys or the Ramones.
Alan Rickman -
I never expected to have any kind of film career, to be honest. It was all a bit of a surprise. But I was in a big hit play on Broadway. America, as many people will say, says yes more often than we do. And so I was suddenly surrounded by people saying yes. But I was aware that was 'cause of what I was in. It had a big impact.
Alan Rickman -
I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?
Alan Rickman -
I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.
Alan Rickman
-
I don't play villains, I play very interesting people.
Alan Rickman -
Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.
Alan Rickman -
Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.
Alan Rickman -
I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh, in many ways I am coming home.
Alan Rickman -
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.
Alan Rickman -
I am the character you are not supposed to like.
Alan Rickman
-
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.
Alan Rickman -
On film you put all your energies into a single glance.
Alan Rickman -
If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.
Alan Rickman -
Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.
Alan Rickman -
Certainly as actors, and maybe as directors, you've got to hang on to something childlike. You've got to know what play is. I haven't worked with Mike Leigh, but I know him very well and there's something open in his eyes about what's in front of him. And the same is true of Alfonso in a Mexican, mad way. There's an enthusiastic response to something. Neil Jordan, the same, when he gets excited . You just want to know there's a human being in there.
Alan Rickman -
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
Alan Rickman
-
The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'
Alan Rickman -
Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.
Alan Rickman -
My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.
Alan Rickman -
I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.
Alan Rickman