Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director. Known for his languid tone and delivery, Rickman’s signature sound was the result of a speech impediment when he could not move his lower jaw properly as a child. These Alan Rickman quotes will motivate you.
Best Alan Rickman Quotes
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Do you know that moment when you paint a landscape as a child and, when you’re maybe under seven or something, the sky is just a blue stripe across the top of the paper? And then there’s that somewhat disappointing moment when the teacher tells you that the sky actually comes down in amongst all the branches. And it’s like life changes at that moment and becomes much more complicated and a little bit more boring, as it’s rather tedious to fill in the branches.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I’ve never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “We’re dead as a species if we don’t tell stories, because then we don’t know who we are.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “There’s a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it’s a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I think there’s some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word […] – a jouuuuuurney.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“Give me a window and I’ll stare out it.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I have every sympathy for writers. It’s a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, ‘I’m not saying that’ or, ‘How about we move this to here? Wouldn’t that make that bit of the story better?’ But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “One of the most, in a weird way, encouraging things a director can say to an actor – I know this as an actor – is when you ask them a question, they say, I don’t know – ’cause it means there’s some space there for you to find out. And it means that there’s going to be a process.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Any actor who judges his character is a fool – for every role you play you’ve got to absorb that character’s motives and justifications.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I like it when stories are left open.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we’re assailed by the most delicious scent – jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn’t.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Mellow doesn’t describe me. I’m hungry every day.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “That’s it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I can only see my limitations. That’s just who I am.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don’t like what’s being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I’m a lot less serious than people think, it’s probably because the way my face is put together.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “With the best intentions, the job of acting can become a display of accumulated bad habits, trapped instincts and blocked energies. Working with the Alexander Technique has given me sightings of another way… Mind and body, work and life together. Real imaginative freedom.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: ‘You’re going to forget your lines’.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I’d spend my working life doing – if I was lucky. Then along came movies.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I don’t play villains, I play very interesting people” ~ Alan Rickman
- “One thing I will say – my job gets harder and harder. The more you understand about what you are capable of, the less the instrument can do it physically. It’s an inverse equation, if that’s the right phrase. I just slammed those two words together. It sounded right.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“My definition of palatable might be slightly different from yours.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Why don’t I like you?” “Because you think I’m an asshole, and I’m not really, I’m just British and, well, you’re not.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I’m not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we’re doing here.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “The point about a great story is that it’s got a beginning, a middle and end.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I’m a lot less serious than people think.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don’t — You hope they don’t leave the theatre thinking that was nice…now where’s the cab?'” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.” ~ Alan Rickman Quotes
- “I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “There’s, like, marks next to an actor’s name or something, and boy does that go up and down! Somewhere in there, which always causes my mate Miss Ruby Wax great hilarity, I was offered a biopic of Frank Sinatra. Even I knew that was a bad idea! They’ll throw anything at you at certain times. So, you know, to thine own self be true.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “What’s interesting about the process of acting is how often you don’t know what you’re doing.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “It’s a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I’m in. There’s a horrible inescapability to it.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.” ~ Alan Rickman
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“I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “The audience should feel like voyeurs. Their response is absolutely crucial.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I don’t think it’s right that everybody knows everything about me.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I have this feeling that if I could sort out what’s on my dining room table, everything would fall into place.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you – almost seems to speak through you, in fact.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It’s kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It’s a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.” ~ Alan Rickman
- “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.” ~ Alan Rickman
