RIP Alan Rickman

I remember the first time we saw Alan Rickman on the big screen.   Iconic roles have a way of imprinting themselves on my memory.  Rickman scored the rare double win as an actor, his big screen debut also was that iconic role.  The wonderfully sophisticated villain Hans Gruber in 1988’s “Die Hard”.

For a younger generation it will be as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies.  But Rickman let the movie world know he was a force on screen with that amazing duet with Bruce Willis.  Let’s be honest, everyone else in that movie is scenery.

Most of his roles played on that superior British hauteur that he did so well.  At the same time he showed himself capable of some breadth like his work in “Love Actually”, or the depressed robot Marvin in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.  He even got a turn as the voice of the Almighty, as Metatron in “Dogma”.

For all of that, my favorite role is in the sci-fi parody “Galaxy Quest”.  As Alexander Dane he offered up a perfect comic sensibility as the actor playing the long suffering second banana on a TV cult classic.  It was a parody of Spock from “Star Trek” (in fact, many Trekkies consider this movie one of the best “Star Trek” movies), but also, I think, a bit of a parody of himself.  The movie is an absolute blast, and he is a large part of the fun.

The good news is that we’ve got one more movie to see with Rickman.  “Alice Through the Looking Glass” comes out later in the year.  Rickman will reprise his role as the Blue Caterpillar.

The bad news is that Alan Rickman has died from cancer.  He was 69.

BBC story