Apparently, "anybody" includes Back Stage. Rowling, however, has elsewhere freely revealed the contents of that conversation: that Snape has been in love with Harry's mother since the day he met her. The revelation occurs in the final installment of the franchise, this year's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." No less than Harry called Snape "the bravest man I've ever known." Indeed, for a variety of reasons, Rickman may be among the bravest actors we've ever known, not least because he took what could have been a cartoon character in a children's film and created an unforgettable portrait with detail, delicacy, and hidden depths.
He spoke with Back Stage about crafting Snape over so many years, changing directors midstream, and the actors who intimidated him.
Back Stage: What backstory had you created for Severus Snape before starting to film "Sorcerer's Stone," and how different was it from Rowling's backstory?
Alan Rickman: I didn't create a backstory; I just created a kind of outline for him. It was more important for me to understand somebody who lives absolutely alone. He's a very alone person. Things like the costume were very important. Whereas the two different costume designers made all sorts of changes through the films to all the characters, my costume stayed exactly the same for all eight films. And it helped me to think that's the only thing hanging in his wardrobe. It's a very solitary life that he has.
Back Stage: And a very secretive life.
Rickman: Well, like any double agent, yes.
Back Stage: Speaking of that, did you think about resistance fighters, people who were in their nation's underground? Or wasn't that the characterization you thought about?
Rickman: It wasn't really. I think the whole point was how malevolent and terrifying a force Voldemort was in charge of, and how much personal danger Snape was putting himself into. And the size of the lie that he was having to tell all the time and not give anything away, because you're talking about the world's greatest Geiger counter in Voldemort. I think the thing with the joy of [Rowling's] writing is that what you see is what you get; it's all happening in front of you.
Back Stage: Working with various directors through the series of films, is there anything you particularly appreciated in what they did?
Rickman: Everybody out there has their favorites amongst the films. I had a great time working with all of them. I'd worked with Alfonso Cuarón before [on the series "Fallen Angels"]. I'd worked with Mike Newell before ["An Awfully Big Adventure"]. So half of the directors I have actually worked with. I think their job was so different on each film, because you're literally watching the driving force of the films growing up in front of your eyes. And that's what each director had to inherit. So the films themselves grew up along with the children. For example, Alfonso, it was very important to him at that stage of their development that these were kids who tied their own horrible school ties. I remember that: You're so lazy at that age, you don't have to tie your tie every morning, so you leave it in this horrible greasy knot for a year and just slip it over your head every day. And these were kids who had bad complexions—I don't mean the actors, I mean the characters—and he deliberately points all of that out. They didn't have their hair endlessly combed. And that was at that stage. And then of course by the time you're getting to the last two films, I'm then on the set with young adults, having started the series looking down at the floor at three tiny little people. So each director had a very, very different set of circumstances.
Back Stage: Did you find your character work feeling different under any of these different directors?
Rickman: Well, I think each of them knew—apart from Chris Columbus, 'cause he started the whole thing—they were inheriting something, and they had to develop what was there before. You can't just change horses, especially with this sort of storytelling. So you've got to take what was there before and then develop it. But of course they did that in very different ways. The visual style changed with different cinematographers.
Back Stage: You have spoken about needing and enjoying interaction with other actors. Who among the cast offered the best interaction?
Rickman: Well, of course, I spent large amounts of my time inevitably with Richard Harris, bless him, and Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith. For me to be working with people that I looked up to when I was at school or an acting student, you have to pinch yourself a bit. You think, "I'm sitting, having a cup of coffee out of a paper mug here, with these great, great actors." Any nuggets or bits of interchange were just gold dust to me.
Back Stage: Any particular things about acting you learned from watching them?
Rickman: Well, it's encouraging to me that they just, all three of them, are and were just relentlessly truthful. Everybody took it deadly seriously. Nobody was joking. There was a lot of laughter off the set, but when you were shooting a scene, it was dead serious. And I think that was the important thing about the whole series: It had to be taken really seriously, otherwise people wouldn't believe it. And I'm on the set with three great truth-tellers, so you just have to try to meet that. At the end of the day, what you learn is acting is mostly "Listen truthfully and accurately and answer truthfully and accurately."
Outtakes
Made his first American splash as the romantic lead in "Truly, Madly, Deeply," followed by roles in "Sense and Sensibility" and, endearing him to the nerd in all of us, "Galaxy Quest"
Is currently on Broadway in Theresa Rebeck's "Seminar"
Plays the tiniest of roles in "Smiley's People," the sequel to the original 1979 adaptation of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"—you can't miss that voice
