Alan Rickman - Something the Lord Made - Part 2

For an action movie to be great its hero has got to be likeable and humane -Willis does that job very well here- but a great action movie has got to also have a great villain and Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber is just that. Gruber is not a one dimensional terrorist; he is a manipulating, well versed and educated man that knows exactly what he wants to do. Gruber is methodical and is patient with his intentions. His charm and intelligence make him seem like someone who wouldn’t cause harm but he can. He is in fact very scary because he is very real. Rickman, with his well trimmed goatee, gives us a grueling, intense portrayal of evil.

Another update...we haven't forgotten about you!
Submitted by Jake Russell on Sunday, Aug 12th - 09:21
Project to update:
Dust, starring Alan Rickman and Jodie Whittaker
Hi Everyone, we realise we haven't checked in for a while to let you know what's been going on, so here's the latest. We're incredibly proud and excited to have the truly world class post-production house The Mill on board to do all our visual effects and colour grading. They're in the final 3 weeks or so of work and we're hoping to have a completed film by the second week of September (perhaps in time for Sundance!). We really, really appreciate your patience and understanding because as we all know these things need to take as long as they end up taking (naturally), which is perhaps a little longer than we'd have liked, but so be it.

We'll send another update in a couple of weeks, but rest assured the project you have all made a reality, is fast becoming the very best it could possibly be.

Thank you and speak soon!

Jake and Ben x

A discussion on child abuse, introduced with a reading from Lolita by an actor, specifically Alan Rickman or possibly Jeremy Irons, as there was a link after all, or maybe Alan Howard? I wrote to all three, and Howard said yes. Rickman didn't even reply, though I'd pointed out that we'd spent 10 seconds in the same room after a radio broadcast several years before. 'You won't remember me…' my letter had begun. He could have written back, 'You won't forget me…' You won't forget him. When you're 80, you'll remember Alan Rickman. Rickman is a control freak.

He is Pacino-esque in repose, a master of verbal control, sucking everything towards him with his tractor beam. That he dedicated years of his life to a project about Franz Mesmer, the hypnotist whose name gives us the word mesmerise, strikes you as an interesting description of how well Rickman must know himself. He was an RSC boy and took his time to relax into the possession of the space he seems to need, where he does his best work, lolling like a leopard. And then later, with a little more space, he came into his own, blowing the top off London's head with his stage Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons.

How can we sleep for grief that Rickman never got the part in the movie? Malkovich was brilliant. Rickman would have been better, would have become a megastar. Rickman loves sentences. Rickman loves vowels – whenever he says a word beginning with a vowel, such as 'I' or 'ever', I get a little shiver at the almost consonantal edge he gives them. Because Rickman has the most beautiful voice in the world. Mesmeric.

The late music writer Ian MacDonald once drew a distinction between McCartney's 'vertical' melodies and Lennon's 'horizontal' tunes: Penny Lane vs I Am the Walrus. Rickman's melody is horizontal, unscrolling over long passages of sheer beauty, often resolving on a tonic note that can sound awful close to a weariness with his own power. And so everyone casts him as a cobra, when his heavy-lidded drawl in fact contains all the colours of the rainbow.

His best movie? Sense and Sensibility, playing the romantic lead. He's 60 now and you worry that the movies looked this gift horse in the mouth somewhat. But I love him. We all love Alan Rickman – the Mongolian eyes, the literate face, the gun-dog smile, which he peels back to reveal teeth which actually glint. And quite honestly, I am so faint with desire picturing him now that I can hardly type this.

So imagine my reaction when, a couple of days after the talk, I received an apologetic message on my answering machine (he was filming Harry Potter and couldn't get away) from the cobra leopard gun-dog himself that began, ''Of course I remember you, silly…'

I slept with the tape

Truly, Madly Deeply (1990)

Just because it's a ghost story doesn't mean you're not allowed to feel good. A love story about a widow (Juliet Stevenson) whose dead husband's ghost (Alan Rickman) returns to hang about until she's back on track with life. Brilliant.

Acclaimed thesp Alan Rickman stars in this overwrought spoof video called 'Epic Tea Time with Alan Rickman'.

It sees the actor making a cup of tea but shot in super-slow motion capture. Sounds daft, but throw in a tense 'Inception' soundtrack and Rickman flipping the table over and you have bizarre, slightly scary viral genius.

Check out his eyes 3 minutes and 55 seconds in.

How was it working with Alan?
Ashley Greene: Amazing. You know, I was a little intimidated at first because I didn’t know quite how he was going to be - I admire him, I think he’s a fantastic actor - but it was great. He’s really fun. He definitely gives a lot to his fellow actors, which is great. If I was thinking about something he would give me tips. It was really great.

Isaac rains out all-star flick

Shooting on the big-budget Lee Daniels-directed movie “The Butler” was shut down in New Orleans as Hurricane Isaac barreled down on the Gulf on Tuesday evening, Page Six can exclusively reveal.

Cast and crew of the film — including Daniels, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alan Rickman, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, Lenny Kravitz, Melissa Leo, Forest Whitaker and producer Hilary Shor — were evacuated to safe locations until the storm passes.
“Evacuating Louisiana. Hurricane Isaac please be gentle! Everyone be safe!” co-star Alex Pettyfer posted on his Twitter feed on Monday.

Minka Kelly, who plays Jackie Kennedy, and Jane Fonda, who plays Nancy Reagan, were due to fly into New Orleans on Monday, but their flights were canceled at the last minute. A source told us, “The cast and crew for the film is huge, and it was a giant operation to get them out. But everyone has been taken to safety. The stars were flown out over the weekend right up until the airport closed.”

Oprah Winfrey ‏@Oprah
Director @LeeDaniels , @JaneFonda as Nancy Reagan , Alan Rickman as Prez Reagan and me gonna be a long nit