Back to News

Credit: studentnewspaper.org

Lust, actually

It’s 10.55am on the 22nd of November and that bloody rugby game is still on. Yep, the big blimmin’ “Yay we won!” World Cup final, the win that brought England crowning glory in the Northern hemisphere, hurray for Jonny whatshisname and all that. It was supposed to have finished already and this extra time is almost unheard of, but now at 10.57, what do I bloody care? The phone is plugged in right next to the TV and Alan Rickman is calling me at 11. I won’t be able to hear him!

My flat-mates are devout fans, and at this make or break point, they really don’t care about my phone-call. Damn them. “No, really guys, this isn’t funny. The Sheriff of Nottingham, ‘I’ll get you Harry Potter’ is calling me in two minutes! Do we have to have the telly on? Could you not just catch the highlights?” Finally that crucial drop kick, over it goes...They’ve done it. About time. “Ok, all finished. What a nice, shiny trophy. Can we turn it off now please?” Suddenly the light tinkle of the telephone floats softly above the rapture. It’s now 11.20am. Could it be? Does my hair look alright? Deep breaths now. It’s him. Those mellifluous tones are unmistakable. “Hello, Abi, sorry for the delay. I was actually watching the rugby and, erm, got a little distracted. Great result eh?” Bloody patriots. Give me football any day.

Alan Rickman is in his 50s now and is getting more and more gorgeous by the minute. Following in the footsteps of Tom Jones and Sean Connery, he’ll soon be qualifying for that highly acclaimed title of British sex symbol - though he hasn’t made it just yet. Not quite ready to qualify for an OAP bus pass, he hasn’t had nearly enough knickers thrown at him. He needs a few more scandals to his name and maybe his own production company, not to mention a house in the Caribbean. Then there’s the all important place in the Queen’s Honours List. Of course, he is undeniably charismatic, and has had the ladies swooning for years. With those dark and mysterious eyes and one of the most hypnotic voices in show-business - his languid tones a result of a serendipitous speech impediment no less - Rickman is well on his way.

In many of Alan Rickman’s more illustrious roles we’ve seen him an inimitable ‘baddie’ of the silver screen. The hysterically camp Sheriff of Nottingham who ‘called off Christmas’ in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the infinitely refined terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard and, of course, the pseudo-psychotic Professor Snape in Harry Potter. As it happens, Rickman often admits a desire to escape his quintessential bad guy image. “I’ve actually played such a mixture of characters. I think as much about my roles in Truly, Madly, Deeply and Sense and Sensibility as I do about all the baddie parts.” To be fair, he’s quite right. Both charmingly chivalrous as Kate Winslet’s second-choice sweetheart in Sense and Sensibility, and an eternally loving soul in the critically acclaimed Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Rickman has perfected some impressive challenges to the type-cast image we all love to shout about. He did go to RADA after all - “Oh then he must be good! Right?” - well yes, actually.

In Love, Actually, another best-of-British Richard Curtis production, Rickman takes on a fairly new type of role. Playing husband to Emma Thompson in the film, the marital devotion they’ve shared for over 15 years is put to the test when a seductive secretary arrives on the scene. Unusually, Rickman is neither the villain nor the endearingly dashing hero of the tale. In fact, he and Emma provide some of the most realistic characters in the film, stoically enduring the potential break up of their marriage. “It was great working with Emma again. It wasn’t a struggle. This was after I’d already directed her. I was just glad of the fact it was someone who I had that kind of knowledge of and closeness to.” At one point the family and their 2.4 children share an idyllic Christmas Eve by the tree, opening presents. As it turns out, this scene was largely unscripted, the actors simply instructed to go with their emotions. “I think it’s just about a different knowledge of each other. With Emma it was easy to improvise, without feeling a threat to one another or invading each other’s space.”

Thompson and Rickman’s relationship in Love, Actually is one of the most surprising in the film. In such a typically Curtisesque project, portraying idealistic searches for love and 11th hour declarations of devotion, it is often difficult to find any realism in the on-screen romances. Until Alan and Emma come along. “I thought that was a plus. I was worried we might be cut, in the general atmosphere of the film, that we might be thought of as a bit of a downer. In actual fact I think it kind of anchors the film. We’re the couple who need to get the babysitter in order to go and watch the movie. I think that’s a valuable thing. We also love each other, that man and that woman. It is an opportunity for people to relate. When practicalities take over, family life and responsibility, suddenly there’s an area where two people who love each other might take each other for granted for a moment. You have to keep the surprise in a relationship.”

Alan Rickman has sustained his own devoted relationship with art college sweetheart, now local London councellor, Rima Horton, for over 30 years. Though she wasn’t his first love as it happens, he says, “I loved Amanda, though from afar I must admit. She had beautiful blonde hair. We were ten; I remember it was the school’s sports day. She won the 100 metres race by a mile”. Ah bless.

Rickman donned the director’s cap for the first time in 1997, when he directed Emma Thompson and her mother Phyllida Law in The Winter Guest, set in the north of Scotland, exploring the intimacies and inadequacies of familial relationships. The job brought with it an entirely different perspective for Rickman, “When you’re directing, and when you’re acting, you have a very different hat on your head. So in a sense, you’re rather a different person. Directing you’ve got to have your eyes everywhere. As an actor, you’ve got to have very innocent eyes.” Thus when Love, Actually came along, Rickman was prepared to help his old chum Richard Curtis, embarking upon his own directorial debut. Though Curtis seemed quite comfortable in the role, “I couldn’t understand how relaxed he was. I remember working with Anthony Minghella on his first film, and his first word on set, on the first day of shooting, was when he turned around to me and said, ‘Help!’ I think that’s the good thing about a film set; you turn around and ask a question, and you’ve got a bunch of experts all ready with a potential answer.” Asked about any future plans to direct, Rickman was pretty tight-lipped: “There’s a script out there at the moment - watch this space.” No hurry, Alan, all that Hogwarts wand waving is no doubt keeping you very busy at the moment.

Oh, and here’s one for your random fact collection. Apparently Alan Rickman is quite a fan of roller-coasters. We’re talking big time here. “I love them. I love the fact that every rational thought leaves you, every bit of thinking. For three minutes, it’s just pure sensation.” Oh, to share pure sensation with Alan Rickman.

Author: Abi Doyle