Career
After graduating from RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo and Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It.
In 1982, British television audiences came to know Alan Rickman as the Reverend Obadiah Slope in the BBC's adaptation of Barchester Towers known as The Barchester Chronicles. In 1985, Rickman was given the male lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Howard Davies. When the show went to Broadway in 1987, Rickman earned both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance. In 1992, he was the "master of ceremonies" on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells II where he read off a list of instruments on the album.
Rickman's career has been filled with a wide variety of roles. He has played romantic leads like Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, and Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply; numerous villains in Hollywood big budget films, like German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991); and most recently the ambiguous character of Severus Snape, the potions master in the Harry Potter series (2001–2011).
His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the AFI's 100 years...100 Heroes & Villains as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films. He has taken issue with being typecast as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991.
During his long career Rickman has also played a number of comedic roles, sending up classically trained British actors who take on "lesser roles" as the character Sir Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus in the science fiction spoof Galaxy Quest, portraying the angel Metatron, the voice of God, in Dogma, appearing as Emma Thompson's foolish husband Harry in Love Actually, providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the egotistical, Nobel Prize-winning father in Nobel Son.
Rickman has also received acclaim for two biographical pieces he did for HBO. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. He also starred in the independent film Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.
In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically acclaimed Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Tim Burton, alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. Rickman also appeared as Absolem the Caterpillar in Burton's 2010 film Alice in Wonderland.
In 2000, Rickman appeared in Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings, a Christmas special by Victoria Wood, playing an aged colonel in the battle of Waterloo who is forced to break off his engagement to Honeysuckle Weeks' character. Harry Potter co-star Imelda Staunton also appeared in the special.
Rickman has performed on stage in Noël Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan and director Howard Davies for this Tony Award-winning production.
His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua.
Rickman had also directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law. He also compiled (with Katharine Viner) and directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for Best Director. In May 2010, he finished directing Strindberg's play Creditors at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theatre after its previous run at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2008.
In 2009 Rickman was given the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin’s Literary and Historical Society.
In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous role in Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw. The Irish Independent called Rickman's performance breathtaking. This production subsequently travelled to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for performances in January and February 2011.
In 2011, Rickman again appeared as Severus Snape in the final installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times said Rickman "as always, makes the most lasting impression," while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called Rickman "sublime at giving us a glimpse at last into the secret nurturing heart that Snape masks with a sneer." Media coverage characterized Rickman's performance as worthy of an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. He earned his first award nominations for his role as Snape at the 2011 Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards, 2011 Saturn Awards, 2011 Scream Awards and 2011 St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category.
On 21 November 2011, Rickman opened in Seminar, a new play by Theresa Rebeck, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. Rickman, who left the production on 1 April, won the Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Play and was nominated for a Drama League Award.
Rickman is to star with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in a remake of 1966's Gambit by the Coen brothers.
In 2013, he will be playing Hilly Kristal, the founder of the famous East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in the CBGB movie with Rupert Grint.
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