Alan Rickman's Quotes

You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.

You try to find things that are challenging and interesting and hopefully it will be the same to the audience.

I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?

I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.

I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time.

In theater, you've got to be aware of your whole body because it involves stamina. It involves two-and-a-half hours and a sustained release of energy, maybe for six months.

On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.

If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.

And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.

There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

I am the character you are not supposed to like.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.

I don't think it's right that everybody knows everything about me.

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

Parts win prizes, not actors.

Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.

From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.