Browse content similar to Alan Rickman. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Once described as cinema's greatest silver tongued devil, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:20 | |
Alan Rickman was one of Britain's finest, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
best loved and most versatile acting talents. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
For theatre lovers, he was an actor whose commitment to the stage was | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
constant, even when Hollywood tried its hardest to tempt him away. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:34 | |
For film fans, he made ordinary roles extraordinary. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:42 | |
No more merciful beheadings... | 0:00:42 | 0:00:43 | |
And call off Christmas! | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
And he brought both quality and class to some of our most popular | 0:00:47 | 0:00:53 | |
and enduring movies. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
And for fellow actors, well, | 0:00:55 | 0:00:56 | |
Alan may have been one of the great scene stealers, | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
but he was both mentor and friend to many. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
And who could resist that voice! | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
I can tell you how to bottle fame, | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
brew glory and even put a stopper in death. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:15 | |
People are intimidated by Al because he is so extraordinary as an actor | 0:01:16 | 0:01:21 | |
and as a director as well, I can say that, and you do have that voice, | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
and people go, "Oh, that voice!" | 0:01:25 | 0:01:27 | |
I mean, everyone I know, certainly the women, go... | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
"Oh, that voice!" | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
But he isn't hard to read. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
He's actually a bit of a big old softie, to be honest. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
That interview took place when Alan was promoting A Little Chaos, | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
the period drama he directed and co-wrote. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
It would be one of the last films Alan appeared in, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
before his unexpected death at the age of 69 in January, 2016, | 0:01:52 | 0:01:58 | |
shocked the acting world and left fans bereft. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:01 | |
For an actor who grabbed your attention in every scene, | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
Alan Rickman certainly took his time getting onto the big screen. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
For a decade he was a leading light at the Royal Shakespeare Company, | 0:02:11 | 0:02:16 | |
and a regular in television and radio dramas. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
Film stardom only came when he was in his 40s. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:23 | |
After he played the villainous Valmont in a stage production of | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
Les Liaisons Dangereuses. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
It was a hit in London, a sensation on Broadway, and in 1988, suddenly, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:35 | |
Hollywood was paying attention. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
A big budget adventure starring opposite Bruce Willis | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
wasn't an obvious first film for a serious thespian. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:46 | |
But Die Hard would come to be considered one of cinema's greatest | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
action movies thanks, in no small part, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
to Alan's extraordinary performance | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
as the terrorist leader, Hans Gruber. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
Fire. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
I was bowled over by just watching | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
his... just the theatricality of how he played this role. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:12 | |
And I went back to LA, and I explained to | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
John McTiernan, who was working with me, and planning to do Die Hard, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:22 | |
how effective I thought Alan was. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
SCREAMING | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
Ladies and gentlemen... | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
Ladies and gentlemen... | 0:03:37 | 0:03:38 | |
..due to the Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed around the globe, | 0:03:45 | 0:03:50 | |
they are about to be taught a lesson in the real use of power. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
You will be witnesses. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
We were very, very lucky when we got Alan, | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
because it kind of set the stage for that kind of evolution of bad guy. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:06 | |
I read it, and I said, "What the hell is this? | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
"I'm not doing an action movie!" | 0:04:10 | 0:04:11 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
Agents and people said, "Alan, you don't understand, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
"this doesn't happen. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
"You've only been in LA two days and you've been asked to do this film." | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
OK. I suppose ignorance was bliss in a way, | 0:04:20 | 0:04:25 | |
it reminds me of the discussions that went on, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
which must have been out of me being stupid, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
because I was being fitted for all this terrorist gear, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
in the early days of the putting of the film together. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
And I said, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
"why would I be wearing this when I've got all these huge hulks | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
"who are going to do all the dirty work?" | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
I was just thinking, you know, if I was wearing a suit, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:51 | |
and not all of this terrorist gear, then maybe there could be a scene | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
where I put on an American accent, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
and he thinks I'm one of the hostages. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:00 | |
Hi there. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:06 | |
How you doing? | 0:05:06 | 0:05:07 | |
Oh, please God, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
no, you're one of them, aren't you? You're one of them! | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
No, no, don't kill me, please, no, don't kill me, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
don't kill me, please, please, please! | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
Whoa, whoa, relax, relax, I'm not gonna hurt you, | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
I'm not gonna hurt you. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:29 | |
And I left this note on Joel Silver's table, saying, | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
"Please think about this, I think it might be interesting." | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
And then I went back to England. I kind of got the Joel Silver, | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
"Get the hell out of here, you'll wear what you're told." | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
OK, fine. Then I came back. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
And they handed me the new script. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
So, you know, it just pays to occasionally use | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
a little bit of theatre training when you're doing a movie, | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
what did he have for breakfast, where did he come from? | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
And, you know, I'm going to look ridiculous in those costumes. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
And then, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
I remember, towards the end of the shooting, they said, we do have, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
we have this shot, they came to me sort of not looking me quite in the eyes, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
we've got the shot at the end, you know, you've got to fall from | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
the top of the building. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
And, um, you know, we could use a stand in but, of course, if we use the stand in, | 0:06:16 | 0:06:21 | |
we'd have to put it on the back of his head, going down that way. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
I thought about it, I said, "I'll do it." | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
This is before the days of CGI. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:32 | |
Now, anybody'd do it, because you would be falling nowhere, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
and they would blow your clothes in a computer. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
That had to be done for real. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
So, I said, "How do we do this?" | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
They said, "Well, OK, well, we'll train you..." | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
Which meant one afternoon, I think, of dropping from ten feet, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
15 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
And so on. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:57 | |
I remember the guy who was doing it saying, "OK, | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
"what you've got to remember is..." | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
I had to pull my own cord to release me, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
I had to remember to bring the gun up and get it in the frame, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
and then he said, "As you're going down, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
"make sure you spread your arms into a kind of star shape, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
"because if you don't, you'll start turning, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
"and you'll land on your head and kill yourself." | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
So it was sort of challenging... | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
We did it three times, at three o'clock in the morning, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
it was the very last shot of mine in the film. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
Just in case... | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
SCREAMING | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
Oh, I hope that's not a hostage... | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
Bruce Willis later said that | 0:08:27 | 0:08:28 | |
Alan's character should never have been killed off, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
and called him the best bad guy | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
he'd ever seen in his life. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
The rest of Hollywood was smitten, too, and to his surprise, | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
Alan would find himself more enamoured with Los Angeles | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
than he ever expected to be. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
You used to rail against having to go to Hollywood, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
to make big movies. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:52 | |
Do you still do that? | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
Do you say, "It's awful that we all have to | 0:08:54 | 0:08:55 | |
"toddle off to Hollywood?" | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
Do you still wish these kinds of movies could be made by British... | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
We all say lots of stupid things that you wish you could... | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
Which we religiously dig into and bring up again years later. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
I'd like to rub them out. But there they are, | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
you're hoist by your own petard all the time. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
Well, I now have some experience of a town that I'm actually very fond of. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:19 | |
And it's filled with very close friends. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
-LA? -Yes. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
I mean, I don't... if I go there, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
I have a kind of rule, which is, don't read the trades, | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
the trade magazines, and don't go to any many premieres and parties, and all of that, | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
so I work there and I live there and I see my friends and I travel. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:39 | |
There is an LA without premieres and parties? | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
Well, you've got to get on your bike a bit! | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
If you can find a bike, or in a car, or walk, yes, absolutely. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
Fantastic countryside. And great people. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
You said it was awful and is disgusting at the same time. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:58 | |
That's true, too. | 0:09:58 | 0:09:59 | |
Well, wonderful and disgusting, probably, at the same time. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
Wonderful and disgusting could be used to describe two of Alan's roles | 0:10:07 | 0:10:13 | |
in two very different films, | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
that both came out in 1991 | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
and highlighted his range and versatility. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
For disgusting, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
was his portrayal of the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham, | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
And wonderful came in Truly Madly Deeply, in which Alan was Jamie, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:37 | |
a ghost, and the recently deceased lover of Nina, | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
who was played by Juliet Stevenson. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
The director was Anthony Minghella, who shared Alan's theatre background, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:49 | |
and whose style would later influence Alan's own directing work. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:54 | |
# Jamie | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
# Sun ain't gonna shine any more | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
# Moon ain't gonna rise in the skies | 0:11:00 | 0:11:04 | |
# The tears are always clouding your eyes | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
BOTH: # When you're without love | 0:11:09 | 0:11:16 | |
# Baby. # | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
Looking at it, I'm thinking, | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
"Well, you know, it's a good representation of what he could do, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
"which was basically everything. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
Make people cry, make people laugh, make people fall in love with him, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
very sexy, delicious, surprising, challenging. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
I mean, you kind of see. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
He could do anything, and you kind of get some sense of his range, I think, in that film. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
The great gift of making that film with him was a very clever bit of | 0:11:38 | 0:11:42 | |
casting by Anthony Minghella because we'd known each other a long time, | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
and I always thought of him, like many people, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
as a sort of family member more than a friend, even. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
So we had a lot of history and I think that played in quite well to the story of the film. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:57 | |
But he was an incredibly inventive person to work with. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
I mean, very, very creative, thinking all the time | 0:12:00 | 0:12:02 | |
about the bigger picture. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
He had his eye on everything, you know, what the camera was doing, | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
what the design was. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:08 | |
He thought, he thought very big and he had many, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:13 | |
many kinds of talent that could address themselves to all sorts of | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
different parts of the job. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:17 | |
So he had a lot to offer in every department, really. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
He was more than an actor, he was an inspiration to pretty much everyone | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
on that crew, as I'm sure he was on every crew, really. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:29 | |
And that wasn't the only occasion when Anthony Minghella allowed the | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
skills of his two lead actors to determine the flow of a key scene. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
There was a very difficult moment in that film | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
where she first sees Jamie, and... | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
..I remember him saying, there's no way we can rehearse this. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
And so he just put enough cameras around the room, | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
and we didn't know what we were going to do, it was never rehearsed. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:58 | |
It was never blocked. | 0:12:58 | 0:12:59 | |
It was just down to... | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
..I'm there, I'm standing there, Juliet turns round, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
then what happens happens. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
SHE GASPS | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
SHE WEEPS | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
SHE CRIES Jamie! | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
His role in Truly Madly Deeply earned Alan | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
a BAFTA nomination for that year's Best Lead Actor. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
In the end he went home that night with a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor, | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
for his scene-stealing Sheriff of Nottingham. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
A role he only took after being promised an unusual amount | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
of artistic freedom. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
Here's a true story: | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
I had a habit of going and having lunch with a very great writer, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:13 | |
playwright, now dead, sadly, called Peter Barnes, | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
and I knew I was going to do Robin Hood and I said, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
"Will you have a look at this script, because it's terrible." | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:14:21 | 0:14:23 | |
And I need some good lines. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
He said, "Well, you know, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:27 | |
"here, where it says, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
"you're coming down the corridor and you're wiping | 0:14:29 | 0:14:33 | |
"the scar off of the statue. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
"You should have a wench in a doorway and then you should say, 'You, my room, ten thirty', | 0:14:36 | 0:14:43 | |
"and then turn to the other wench, 'and you, ten forty five.' | 0:14:43 | 0:14:48 | |
So I'm going, "You, my room... | 0:14:48 | 0:14:50 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
I'd also given the script to Ruby Wax, who's a great friend of mine. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:57 | |
And I'd said to her, "Will you read this script and come up with some lines?" | 0:14:57 | 0:15:02 | |
She came round to my house. I said, "Have you read the script?" "No, I didn't have time. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
"Just say the lines to me." | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
So I said, "Well, today, Peter Barnes said, | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
"have a wench there, 'you, my room, ten thirty, you, ten forty-five.' | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
Immediately she said, 'and bring a friend.' | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
And bring a friend. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
And when I presented this to Kevin Reynolds, he'd learned, by then, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:30 | |
not to tell the producers. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
For whatever reason. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:36 | |
And not to tell the crew or anything. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
And so he set this up for me to do it and I said, "Look, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
"I'll say these lines, you put the women in there, | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
"I'll say the lines and then I'll just clear the frame at the end of the line." | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
Nobody knew this was happening except him. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
And I knew it had worked because as I cleared the camera, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
I saw about 80 members of the crew just go... | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
This hooded viper simply slithers into the forest. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:05 | |
You, my room, ten thirty, tonight. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
You, ten forty-five. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
And bring a friend. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
And then occasionally Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
who was being sort of seriously Maid Marian, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
she'd come over to do one of the scenes with us, and she'd say, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:22 | |
"I want to be in his film!" | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
Clearly Alan was an actor whose opinion and input were highly | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
valued by directors. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
And further evidence of that could be found in this excerpt from a BBC | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
documentary, filmed on the set of the 1994 film Mesmer, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:44 | |
directed by Roger Spottiswoode. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
It starred Alan as a charismatic Austrian hypnotist and this | 0:16:48 | 0:16:53 | |
behind-the-scenes study gives an insight into how he worked | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
and involved himself with the production. | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
The more films that one does, | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
the more you get a sense of how the camera can | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
reflect or contradict the story that you have going on in your head. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:15 | |
But then you've also got to set that against the way that a director's | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
vision is not necessarily yours, | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
and can take yours and reshape it and make it into something more interesting. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:26 | |
So that is why I don't go to rushes. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
But that is also why | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
you know, like yesterday, I was saying, | 0:17:31 | 0:17:32 | |
"please don't put camera so low, because it means it's already got an attitude." | 0:17:32 | 0:17:36 | |
The feeling is wonderful. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
And in this one it's nice, the hand, how it's coming out, and going... | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
What I enjoy is getting onto the set and seeing what happens on the day, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:50 | |
with the other actors and the director, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
and myself, and not having predicted it too much. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:57 | |
Usually there isn't a rehearsal. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:58 | |
You have to use that as a plus and not a minus. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
It is actually a minus, of course, because, truth be told, | 0:18:01 | 0:18:06 | |
people who say we can't afford to rehearse, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
are actually wasting money because we'd all get there much quicker if | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
everybody had a sense of where they were going. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
But having said that, there is... | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
you know, it's a bit like watercolours, or something, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
you have to work fast, and it's a unique way of working. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:26 | |
I'm just trying to work out the various options that I have. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:31 | |
Amanda and I are kind of | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
the book ends of the scene, but what she has to do is entirely emotional. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:40 | |
And what I have to do is almost entirely technical. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:43 | |
Just seems like she could | 0:18:50 | 0:18:51 | |
keep talking, and I have to stop... | 0:18:51 | 0:18:56 | |
-You had to....? -Sort of. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
And I'm saying now it's flowing straight and clear into... | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
And I shouldn't really be moving, | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
I should have just picked her up and got her there. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
-And then you... -And sat down. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
I can't explain, I mean it's just the timing of lines. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:16 | |
Just the timing of the lines... | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
Makes that quality Alan's fans so adored, and it sounds so simple. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:27 | |
He was a master of nuance and when he spoke, you had to listen. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
But what about when he sang? | 0:19:32 | 0:19:34 | |
Well, here he is, discussing that particular challenge, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
which he encountered when cast with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
in Tim Burton's 2007 version of | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
Stephen Sondheim's musical, Sweeney Todd. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
Get on phone, ring up singing teacher, get on bus, | 0:19:53 | 0:19:58 | |
go see him and basically be abused... | 0:19:58 | 0:20:03 | |
..on a long-term basis, by the singing teacher, Mark Meylan who, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
basically he works in large doses of deep sarcasm | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
to get you anywhere near something vaguely acceptable. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:17 | |
# You see, sir, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:19 | |
# A man infatuate with love Her ardent and eager slave | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
# So fetch the pomade and pumice stone | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
# And lend me a more seductive tone | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
# A sprinkling perhaps of French cologne | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
# But first, sir, I think | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
A shave. # | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
'It requires a bit of planning, | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
'which is like making sure that Johnny Depp records his first, | 0:20:39 | 0:20:44 | |
'because he's singing the tune and you're going to be singing sort of | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
'underneath it. So don't make the mistake of doing yours before you've | 0:20:47 | 0:20:52 | |
'heard what he's doing.' | 0:20:52 | 0:20:53 | |
# Revenge can't be taken in haste | 0:20:53 | 0:20:58 | |
# Make haste, and if we wed, you'll be commended, sir | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
# My lord. # | 0:21:01 | 0:21:02 | |
'Make sure that your singing teacher is there with you. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
'Make sure that you get there 45 minutes before | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
'you're going to record so that he can | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
'boot you up to the notes that are otherwise unreachable.' | 0:21:11 | 0:21:16 | |
# Pretty women | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
# Silhouetted | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
# Stay within you | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
# Glances | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
# Stay forever | 0:21:27 | 0:21:28 | |
# Breathing lightly. # | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
'Then it's recorded and that's that, and now it's lip-syncing. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
'Which I suppose because one worked so hard, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
'that by the time you're lip-syncing, it's so kind of glued to your brain, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:42 | |
'lip-syncing seems to be the least of your problems, | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
'because there is no way you're going to stretch a note or... | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
'It's difficult music. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:49 | |
'It's brilliant, brilliant music. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
'But the match of music and lyrics is so complex and so... | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
'..unique.' | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
# Times is 'ard. # | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
Stephen Sondheim himself loves it. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
So take your purism and do what you want with it, because | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
there's not much more purist than Stephen Sondheim himself. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:19 | |
Sweeney Todd wasn't the only film experience that Alan had with Helena Bonham Carter. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:27 | |
Both played followers of the evil Lord Voldemort in the | 0:22:27 | 0:22:31 | |
Harry Potter series. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
Alan's scheming Professor Severus Snape became one of the most important | 0:22:33 | 0:22:39 | |
in JK Rowling's epic story. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
Here he is talking about being part of the Potter phenomena, | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
just before the opening of the very first film in 2001. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:50 | |
Whenever I was on the set and children were coming in and visiting, | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
the endless refrain was, "Wow, it's just like the book." | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
And I think that was certainly Chris Columbus's and the producer's aim, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:03 | |
to be faithful to JK Rowling's imagination. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:07 | |
And I think given the fact that at the end of the screening last night, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
the entire cinema stood up and cheered, I guess they've done it. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
That's their reaction, but what about yours? | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
Is it worth the hype, in your view? | 0:23:17 | 0:23:20 | |
Well, it's worth any amount of hype to get children to read again, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:26 | |
and in these kind of numbers. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
And to have that kind of passion about sitting down in a corner turning | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
pages of a book, instead of, you know, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
pressing on computer keys all the time and just playing PlayStations. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:41 | |
Did you buy into the fantasy? | 0:23:41 | 0:23:43 | |
Buy into it in what sense? I mean, I found... | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
I remember you saying once in order to be really good at something, you have to be wholly absorbed by it. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:52 | |
Well, when I read the book, I didn't stop turning the pages. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:58 | |
So yes. In that sense. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
It's a great story of... | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
..in a long line of, a long tradition | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
of that kind of storytelling. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:07 | |
Are you amazed that it's going to set box office records? | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
Merchandising as well? | 0:24:11 | 0:24:12 | |
No, I'm not amazed. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
It's caught the public imagination, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
and, I mean, in a sense the hype is incidental. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:23 | |
The hype is hanging on to the coat-tails of something | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
sort of elemental. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
It was a huge vote of confidence in this film, the Harry Potter film, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:32 | |
that it was an entire British cast, wasn't it? | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
Well, it was a measure of JK Rowling's power. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:40 | |
Because it wasn't going to be that way. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
-She insisted on it. -Mhmm. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
How hard a fight was that? | 0:24:45 | 0:24:47 | |
I think if it's in her contract, she just... | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
She just dug her heels in, you know. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
She's got a wonderful sense of when to say no. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
Mr Potter. | 0:24:57 | 0:24:58 | |
Our new celebrity. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Tell me, what would I get if I added | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
You don't know? Well, let's try again. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
Where, Mr Potter, would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar? | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
-I don't know, sir. -And what is the difference between monkswood and wolfbane? | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
I don't know, sir. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:32 | |
Pity. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:35 | |
Clearly, fame isn't everything. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
Is it, Mr Potter? | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
What does it say, the part? | 0:25:45 | 0:25:46 | |
What does it say about the point you've reached in your career? | 0:25:46 | 0:25:51 | |
-Harry Potter? -Yes. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:52 | |
Did it stretch you? Did you get a buzz out of it? | 0:25:52 | 0:25:55 | |
No, not hugely. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
It's great fun to be part of something | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
that's going to be a kind of marker point, I suppose, in cinema history. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:04 | |
Whatever people make of the film | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
on, you know, on any critical level, | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
it's an event, like the Beatles. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
So will it, as events sometimes do, open more doors, is that the idea? | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
Is that why you took the part? | 0:26:19 | 0:26:21 | |
No. I mean at this point in time, I kind of do what interests me. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
And where I feel that I'm going... | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
You see, I think that my job is to be a storyteller. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:34 | |
And actors are very much part of a storytelling chain. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:39 | |
There's the piece of work. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:41 | |
And one side of it's the performer, and the other side of it's an audience. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
And it's... | 0:26:44 | 0:26:47 | |
..I should say, there's the piece of work. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
The actor's in the middle, between the piece of work and the audience. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
And it's my job to be as efficient a storyteller as possible. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
It was a job he excelled at. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
Telling stories both big and small. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:04 | |
But of course, he is rightly considered one of cinema's ultimate bad guys. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
But as we've seen, he was much, much more than that. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:12 | |
Besides, Alan always insisted, "I don't play villains. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:16 | |
"I play very interesting people." | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
A rare talent. Alan Rickman is much missed. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
Truly, madly, deeply. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 |