Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries

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I want to be directed not whinged at,” he growls when shooting Rasputin, then adds a parenthetical concession: “(But I think I must be a bit of nightmare with my ‘certainties’). That makes what follows a little uncomfortable, especially given the vulnerability and harshness of some of the entries. His diaries, then, offer an irresistible glimpse into the mind of an actor who excelled at playing buttoned-up men.

Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries review: cutting wit Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries review: cutting wit

He was surrounded by people who loved him and up until 13 January was still in control of everything that was going on around him. Alan also spent a lot of time watching TV – his two favourite programmes at that time were Don’t Tell the Bride and Say Yes to the Dress. He eats out several times a week, sometimes with colleagues but more often with friends and his partner, Rima Horton. Cold, wet, draughty but the crew seem miles away so Ralph and I can just get on with inching our way towards the scene.This is partly because Rickman didn’t regard them as his finest work – on collecting a Bafta for Robin Hood, he said: “This will be a healthy reminder to me that subtlety isn’t everything” – but also because of the interviewers who insisted on quizzing him about them, years later.

Alan Rickman’s diaries: ‘Ang seems nervous. He probably needs Alan Rickman’s diaries: ‘Ang seems nervous. He probably needs

He embarks each time on a wave of idealism, only to chronicle the crushing impact of reality in the form of colleagues, audiences, the press. No entry is long: usually a few lines relating the facts of each day, with a sly observation or an exasperated aside thrown in. Such a shame, because I would have loved to read a true biography rather than whatever this was intended to be.Here, we see a woman who cannot let go, who is so paralyzed with grief she cannot live the life left to her. About a Boy is, “The kind of depressing English film where single mothers and Amnesty workers are ugly people in oversized sweaters. Despite having mixed feelings about the way this book has been published, I found Rickman’s diaries a really interesting and enlightening read. Back home and Rima (narrative brainbox) says, “He can’t kill you with a spell – the only one that would do that is Avada Kedavra and it kills instantly – you wouldn’t be able to finish the scene.

Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries review – great actor

Jessie Thompson discovers they reveal the Harry Potter and ‘Die Hard’ star as cutting, uncompromising and gravely serious about his work – but what if he’d had a bit more fun? In 1992, he started to produce a much fuller account of his life and work and bought diaries from a local stationer’s that gave him a page a day to play with. There is a turn-of-the-millennium glamour: lunches at the Ivy and the River Café sat close to Lucian Freud, parties at Ian McKellen’s riverside home.

He and his wife host a dinner for Katharine Viner, Ed Miliband and Miranda Richardson, and Rickman is tired and stressed and they eat too late: “As we closed the door… we said with one voice ‘nightmare’. He apparently spent his last months on the sofa watching Don’t Tell the Bride and Say Yes to the Dress. That said, I doubt he really intended these to be published which makes me a little frustrated with myself for reading them.

Madly, Deeply : The Alan Rickman Diaries - Google Books Madly, Deeply : The Alan Rickman Diaries - Google Books

The diaries span 22 years, beginning in 1993 and ending in December 2015 (a few weeks after the final entry, Rickman died, aged 69, from pancreatic cancer), thereby capturing him at the height of his fame.It is particularly amusing to read him railing against critics, while himself displaying all the skills required for the job. Instead he has painted himself: the actor on stage, set, holiday, always watching, always noting, usually brickbatting directors. Madly, Deeply also includes a foreword by Emma Thompson and a selection of Rickman's early diaries, dating from 1974 to 1982, when his acting life first began. Rickman’s different kind of diary is witty and debonair, caustic and fretful, for which some readers may like him less, others love him more. He takes us inside his home, on trips with friends across the globe, and on the sets of films and plays ranging from Sense and Sensibility, to Noël Coward's Private Lives, to the final film he directed, A Little Chaos.