Losing so many creative people too soon. Condolences to Rickman's family, friends and acting colleagues.
Strange that Rickman and Bowie both died at 69 in the same week, of the same disease.
Charlie Rose interview in which Rickman talks about his voice and actually how difficult it was for him to work on developing it in acting school. He says voice quality is dependent upon individual mouth structure and it was an accident of nature that his mouth's structure provided him with such a resonant quality due to a high roof that is both a blessing and a curse. He had to work harder to project so that sound didn't get lost within his mouth's larger chamber:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFXRzP3iD_4
BAFTA interview discussing some of his roles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKLDyIyYfFs
I've never forgotten his performance in the first
Die Hard movie. It was his first film and he landed the role very quickly upon coming to Hollywood, and he made of it something quite extraordinary.
I must go look at his films, the old memorable ones, and those I haven't yet seen.
He really was great at playing villains. But, it sounds like, in real life, he was wonderful to those around him:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1so6djn
What a beautiful and heartfelt testimonial from Scottish actor Sean Biggerstaff. A testament to how kind and generous-hearted Rickman was -- that's so poignant and inspirational.
I also get a deep sense of the kind of person Rickman was from his friend Emma Thompson's words:
"...his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view... He was the ultimate ally ... and above all things a rare and unique human being. We shall not see his like again."
