Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British actor Alan Rickman.
Last updated on December 5, 2024.
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director. Known for his deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, he was nominated for a Tony Award.
Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.
I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.
I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.
I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.
Los Angeles is not a town full of airheads. There's a great deal of wonderful energy there. They say 'yes' to things; not like the endless 'nos' and 'hrrumphs' you get in England!
I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.
Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.'
I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh, in many ways I am coming home.
You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.
I like it when stories are left open.
Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.
I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.
So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.
I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.
I don't think it's right that everybody knows everything about me.
All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.
If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.
There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.
Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.
One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.
And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.
I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we're assailed by the most delicious scent - jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.
Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.
If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.
I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.
Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.
Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.
Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.
I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.
Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.
Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.
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.
My idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.
I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.
When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.
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.'
If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.
I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.
I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.
My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.
I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.
I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.
I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.
It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.
I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It's kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It's a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.
On film you put all your energies into a single glance.
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.
I am the character you are not supposed to like.
I'm a lot less serious than people think.
If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.
Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.
You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.
The audience should feel like voyeurs. Their response is absolutely crucial.
The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what's impossible? What's a fantasy?
I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.
A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.
I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.
I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.