Alan Rickman's Greatest Roles

Every once in a while, an actor dies and I genuinely feel like we lost someone who contributed much to our world. Alan Rickman is one such person. So rather than reviewing a film tonight, I’m going to identify my favorite Rickman roles and tell you what I think made them special.

● Hans Gruber in Die Hard: This was the first time I noticed Rickman. In this film, he played the villain Hans Gruber, a German thief pretending to be a terrorist to cover up the robbery he’s planning. What Rickman did here that was ingenious was that he played the role as so over the top when dealing with the people he was duping, but he plays the role with icy determination when dealing with the much more dangerous Bruce Willis. The result was that he seemed especially dangerous and he gave us a reason to see “everyman” Bruce Willis as a step above everyone else. In effect, this sold us on Willis being the only credible hero in the film because the cops and the media and the hostages were all suckers. What’s more, for Willis to be able to play the everyman, Rickman needed to be able to command the screen for most of the film without losing credibility, and he does. The scenes with Rickman were creepy, chilling, fascinating and hilarious... all at once. That’s an amazing achievement.

● Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series: What can you say? Rickman became Severus Snape to such a degree that it became impossible to see anyone else in that role. Even more importantly, Rickman did something fascinating with the role: he made Snape so unlikable that you despised him, yet teased you with the idea of an inner struggle which made you pull for him even as you hated him. It is an amazing line to walk as an actor to be so unlikable and yet be a character that people wanted to see made good. It is equally amazing to me that, in the end, Rickman injected such ambiguity within the emotions Snape projected that you never truly knew if he was in fact working for the good guys or the bad. That was all Rickman’s characterization too... it was not Rowling’s writing. Finally, his character, not anyone else’s, elevated the Harry Potter series to be something that reached adults.

● Alexander Dane in Galaxy Guest: This movie really showed the amazing range Rickman had. Not only did he manage to lose himself in the role so that you almost didn’t know it was him, but he did it with a character who was essentially a stock character. Indeed, Dane was basically every whiny, jealous second-tier actor who found himself as the sidekick on a hit television show, right down to the pretentious talk of being a great thespian at heart who was typecast by the show he now hates. Rickman took this rather worn character and made it stand out as fresh and new. He also had you in stitches doing it. Indeed, this role showed that Rickman could more than handle comedy with ease, something few serious actors can do.

● Lukas Hart III in Bob Roberts: Bob Roberts is a cult classic that’s well worth the time. As an attack on the supposed “manufactured/packaged nature” of conservative candidates, this film fails in several ways. For one thing, while we’re supposed to hate the main character, Tim Robbins is too likable in the role. For another, the folk music that was meant to be a parody wasn’t biting/ironic enough and Robbins ended up refusing to release it out of fear that conservatives would use it... “I’m a clean living man with a rope in my hand.” Further, it really shows the left as the intolerant petty little monsters they are. Just watch the SNL knock-off scene and you’ll see what I mean as the “good leftists” come across as totally petty, intolerant and abusive. Finally, everything in this film quickly became SOP for people like the Clintons, so criticizing these tactics didn’t sit so well on the left even one election cycle later.

Anyways, Rickman plays Hart, Roberts’ campaign manager, who is also a mysterious former military/CIA guy who is accused of creating Bob Roberts to give the military industrial complex its own Senator. Rickman plays this role so well, showing you a guy who is too high strung and who struggles with the fact that he needs to play second fiddle to Roberts, his own puppet. This is a complex and fascinating role. And while Roberts is great, the truth is that without Rickman’s mysterious and on-edge character, this film just wouldn’t be complete.

Rickman had amazing range and, like the best actors of our era, he managed to bring something special to every character he did which made them real to us and memorable. He’s not a man to ever phone it in, to do what everyone else has already done, or to play a role without trying to reach us whether he was the villain, the hero or just an extra. He will be missed.

What were some of your favorite Rickman roles?