Alan Rickman he passed away on January 14, 2016, but just seven months before his death he talked about seeing his young Harry Potter Costars thrive as adults.
“I think it’s a relief as much as anything,” Rickman said Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grintsuccess in the June 2015 episode of the series Josh Horowitz‘with “Happy, sad, confused” podcast.. “You look at that situation and as much as I only did it for seven weeks, they did it for 52 weeks. That was their life from 12 to 22 years old. And you’d sometimes watch it from the sidelines and throw away the odd lifeline because there was so little time for that.”
Rickman, who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69 played Severus Snape in all eight Harry Potter films from 2001 to 2011, and stayed in touch with Radcliffe after filming ended.
“Only in recent years, for example, I’ve been able to sit down in a coffee shop in New York with Daniel,” Rickman continued in the interview. “At one point, he was down the street in one theater and I was across the street in another. Huge pride to see him in a musical (How to succeed in business without really trying). How dare she dance as well as the New York dancers? Because he worked on it.”
Once a Hogwarts student, always a Hogwarts student — and the frequent reunions of the Harry Potter cast prove it. In 2001, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone appeared in cinemas, introducing to the world Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who played the three main characters from JK Rowling’s novel: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione (…)
Radcliffe only recently heard Rickman’s words. Horowitz released a clip from the set of “Happy Sad Confused” in April 2024 with Radcliffe in support We roll happily (for which Radcliffe won his first Tony Award).
“I was so scared of Alan Rickman. How can you not be with that voice?” Radcliffe, now 35, said after watching a video of his late colleague. “Even when you hear that voice, you forget how quiet it was until it reverberated through you. I was so scared of him in the first three movies. I was terrified of him and said: ‘This guy hates me.’ Somewhere along the way, he saw that I really wanted to do this and work on it.”
Alan Rickman, Tom Felton, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis on July 11, 2011 in New York.
Getty ImagesHe added that Rickman was particularly supportive of his theater career on Broadway and London’s West End. “He interrupted his vacation in Canada to come see me Equus”, said Radcliffe. “He saw every stage work of mine while he was alive. Afterwards he would take me out and we would talk about it. He was one of the first people to say, like, ‘You should look into voice training and the Alexander Technique and all that stuff.’ He said, ‘You probably won’t get this otherwise, so you should research all these things.’ I am so happy. Hearing him say that is really nice. Thank you for showing me that.”
Although Rickman called Radcliffe a “phenomenal” performer in a 2015 podcast, he didn’t always feel that way. In his personal journals, published in 2022 Crazy, Deep: The Alan Rickman Diarieshe recalled how Radcliffe became more professional during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
“He’s so focused now. Serious and focused — but with a sense of fun,” Rickman’s May 2003 entry reads about the third film. “I still don’t think he’s a real actor, but he will undoubtedly direct/produce. And he has the quiet, dignified support of his parents. Nothing is pushed.”
Apparently that has changed – Radcliffe has said on several occasions that he didn’t decide he wanted to be an actor afterPotter to the fifth film — and the younger actor didn’t mind hearing the good as well as the bad. He even appreciated Rickman’s suggestion.
“I would definitely like to (try) directing,” Radcliffe said on See what’s happening live with Andy Cohen in November 2022 “Production seems like all the hard parts of the industry without any fun, so I’m not really interested in it.”
Radcliffe added: “All the stuff that Alan wrote was a very beautiful and nostalgic read. For example, from his comments about us, saying, ‘These kids need to learn their sentences. It’s kind of a nightmare now.’ All these things until we met when I was here (in NYC) when I was playing a show. It was very, very sweet to read all that.”
Rickman is survived by his wife Rima Horton.