Alan Rickman 1 Hour Interview (Part 4/4 - Audience Q&A) @ New York Times Arts & Leisure Weekend 2012

let's go to some audience questions so sir why don't you start up if we can keep the questions to fairly brief and in the form of a question that would be great because we have several we want to get through in only 15 minutes so yes sir mr. Rickman you have a very sort of iconic and distinctive voice and a lot of actors who have that sort of feature have found themselves always doing very similar types of how have you avoided being typecast despite being having a sort of iconic well it's I get it's down to who you are and what you want to do and what you want to spend your life doing and what's gonna make you interested and then it's about what scripts come to you because you're not in control of that particularly and then it's absolutely about what you say yes and no to you so I have said no to a lot of things and it just so happens that I'm just as happy doing some small project likes and okay although to me that's not small that you have to really fight hard to give life to so it's about who you are as a person and the choices you make rather than or the nose you say rather than the yeses what keeps you interested it changes all the time the idea of typecasting is another hammer and nails and I suppose I just resist that thank you yes a friend of mine saw you on Broadway and lilies on Don Shula's and he said a very old friend he always said he led with his groin and I'm wondering if you use that part of the body kinetically very frequently well let's just remember it was 25 years and if we're talking about equipment the groin was more part of the equipment or it was a relevant thing I think that you use all of you and that man was very governed by his groin so yes I would agree with that and also I think I don't know where you lead from as an actor it's just going back to what we were saying about here's my head here's my body and people talk about acting being very cent you have to be centered and if I think about what does that mean it's somewhere here now what is that is that your head is it your heart is your groin is it your soul it's it's something unnameable but it's something you must engage otherwise has no connection thank you yes going back to the uniqueness sound of your voice I don't think I'll ever think of the C word again after hearing how you said it in seminar so I'm wondering is there a story did you have any kind of trepidations about saying the word and did you have conversation with the director on how you would deliver it I don't think I say the C word in seminar which P the P I'm gonna say I think I'd remember saying the c-word no I don't get if I believe in the story and I think it's got something to say I don't I don't think one will edit out content that would to be beat that's a really bad C word which is censor I mean I will not do a play or a film which promotes right-wing causes that's about as far as it goes on me thank you yes mr. Rickman you've worked with an array of actors on the film and stage is there someone you admire who you haven't worked with who you'd like to round up the usual suspects there are many great actors and certainly great film actors particularly in this country and without naming names they'd all be pretty obvious that I haven't worked with and would love to this country's full of fantastic actors Thanks yep hello mr. Quinn it's a pleasure obviously you've been in the acting business for a very long time and you've done an array of different things with different special effects especially from the Harry Potter films to like theatre where there's less special effects I was wondering it how is the special effects for you and do you prefer acting with more or less special effects what do you don't know about them at the time you know no point about them is that you see them eventually it's a kind of odd experience to be on a set that there isn't a set and that's got a load of blue screens and red dots but then again you know you're playing a scene in front of a camera what you see is us in a world whether it's a real one that's been built or one that's been made in a computer what we're staring out is a film crew of about a hundred people with clipboards and stop watches and directors with frustrated faces so our reality is not yours anyway in a way it's sort of freeing to set foot on a stage and you're in complete control theoretically yes one of my most delicious filmgoing memories is hearing you say cut his heart out with a spoon my favorite line but what I'm asked that I'd like to ask you about is truly madly deeply how does that how did you come to do it and how does that move for you in your memory um it's a very very special memory because of course it was Anthony Minghella the first film and if I remember anything that I certainly used when I came to direct I film was on the very first day of filming he turned to the actors and the crew and he just said I have one word help and and it was special too because Julia Stephenson and I had done a lot of work together in the theater and so I was talking earlier about you know often the lack of process in film and a lack of rehearsal time well Anthony was very much a theater play right before he did that film and so we had a lot of rehearsal and we were very prepared and you know a huge amount of trust so I learned a lot about if you can create the circumstances they are ideal ones ask for arousal time and make sure that Trust is there in spades thank you very much for asking about that film it was in contention with Sense and Sensibility yes mr. Rickman you've given advice for acting for young students but I was wondering if you had any advice for directing and shifting between film directing and then stage directing well directing for film is a mystery to me because how one ever arrives at the first day with a crew and a script and the money to do it is increasingly and the biggest game of all tenacity and the big advantage to me is that you don't have to show up looking good at six o'clock in the morning advice I really don't know you've just got to it's got to be something you really really want to the story you really want to tell because you're going to be with it for a year even from the time you start and then you're in the editing room and then you're going through the whole publicity circus so you've gotta have a really strong sense of yourself as a team leader and then as somebody who is gonna live with that story for that length of time that it's gonna feed you Theater is a you know you're a bad director is the one who in the theater who is there through the three weeks four weeks five weeks six weeks of rehearsal and then you never see them again they exist because they're on to the next project a good director is one that stays in touch and knows that as Pat was saying it's gonna change and a good director should hope that that will happen and we'll let you go but also no to Rainey back in question where do you get your t-shirt eBay got Rickman very nice yes you've made all of us laugh and cry sit on the edge of our seats and anticipation and fall in love because of all the different characters that you've played is there something either stage or screen that you found is probably your largest challenge when it comes to playing different characters you know every every job you do you put all of yourself into so I can't really divide them up you have to figure out which bit of yourself is going to be needed for this which which pieces of the equipment and then you have to get out the sharpening blades and it's an impossible question to answer because every one of them is a piece of my life you know whether it's a six is six months of doing a player's a long time five weeks of shooting a film is still five weeks of your life with a bunch of people who you become very close to and they were complete strangers it's a weird existence you know you it's all part of this thing that will this afternoon horrific ly doing it again thank you thank you yes you are the master of subtlety we are on the edge of our seats just waiting for the next little eyebrow raise the next syllable you do so much with so little and I just want to know sorry I mean with a little gestures the little gestures and the syllables like equally and so forth so um what's your inspiration you say it's about you know listening and responding but it's got you you've got to savor it yourself you've got to get it from somewhere where does it come from well I mean every act that has appears on film or on stage in leading roles and has some kind of reputation every one of them has something that's uniquely then you know you Whittle it Meryl Streep was sitting here now you'd say how the hell do you do that and I look at clips of her being Margaret Thatcher I think how does she breathe it in it's who you are it's it's it's what you do and you can't take any credit for it all you have is a responsibility to it and the same is true of anybody that takes what they do to some level of expertise you have to work at it keep working at it challenge yourself make put yourself at the service of the writer the writing is always the most important thing you have to just hand yourself over to that thank you thanks yes Jacqueline um I request what was your favorite moment on the set of Harry Potter slogans are your favorite moment while on the set of Harry Potter well probably ones that I can't possibly share with you I know some of them because they would all be about disgraceful behavior ha ha ha between grown adults who should know better thanks yes thanks for everything you do um there are so many interviews and sometimes you hear the same questions over and over and that hasn't happened today for the most part but there are any questions that you're longing to answer that you haven't been asked no no I have my t-shirt would just say less is more ha ha a good question though yes hi many actors say they don't like to watch themselves on film so I was just wondering how it felt to watch yourself act as well as sitting in Sweeney Todd no I can't bear it I guess I've seen you're forced to watch things at premieres and so I've seen those bits and pieces but it's not a hobby of mine to watch myself at all ever and in fact I was asked if they could show a clip from seminar and I absolutely had to say no because you know I'm still doing it and I would not want to be watching that before I then have to do it today thank you thank you that is all the time that we have I want to thank Alan Rickman for joining thank you for coming out you

Channel: chocobuttons1

Views: 39,169

Keywords: Alan Rickman (Film Actor), Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Sweeney Todd, Seminar

Id: mXLt0jhFiV4

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 19 2012