The late Alan Rickman was a remarkable actor. He played Hans Gruber in the original Die Hard movie with distinction. He played the role of unfaithful husband in Love Actually with a deep believability and stoic English charm, but it’s his role as anti-Hero in Harry Potter is is most memorable role, but was he always happy in the role?
A new archive of some of his personal papers allude to the fact that he was frustrated sometimes and felt the character of Severus Snape was not being appreciated enough.
There was a note from Harry Potter producer David Heyman written to Rickman after the release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second movie in the series in which Heyman said; “Thank you for making HP2 a success. I know, at times, you are frustrated but please know that you are an integral part of the films. And you are brilliant.”
This feeling of frustration seemed to be mirrored when Rickman in 2009 following the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, wrote a letter of his own under a heading called ‘Inside Snape’s Head’, where he said; “It’s as if [the film’s director] David Yates has decided that this is not important in the scheme of things i.e. teen audience appeal.”
Rickman passed away in 2016 of Pancreatic cancer.