Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries

Product Information

Carrie Fisher is there, funny and fast. Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson, Zoë Wanamaker, Joanna Lumley, John Sessions. Someone asks Jennifer S what she does. The inevitable late night row … Somewhere in here, finally, the deal is done for HP 7 parts one and two, and people are all carefully left in possession of genitalia. Duke of York Theatre. For the march [against the Iraq war]. Except that we didn’t make it to the Duke of York – no taxis anywhere. We walked to Piccadilly … and joined the march there. At Hyde Park (having seen 1m people behind us) there was Bruce Kent & Tariq Ali at the microphones but Minnie Driver & Tim Robbins to remind us that celeb rules, really.

Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman|Hardcover Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman|Hardcover

Wimpole Street. Doctor’s laboratory. Blood test and reading many magazines, including Vogue’s info that Emma Watson was given a vintage Rolex “by her producers” … To the Star Lake auditorium [near Pittsburgh] to walk on water. Which all works fine apart from the by now predictable 3am when the camera comes round, and my brain is frying gently. But there’s a vaguely celebratory atmosphere, the lake lit beautifully and as dawn broke we drank some champagne in the makeup trailer and said goodbyes.To Ang Lee. He gets the Sensibility, what’s the Sense? How to play, how to shoot Brandon, “the only strong man in the story”. I said: “I’ll be doing it, you’ll just have to shoot it.”

Madly, Deeply : The Alan Rickman Diaries - Google Books Madly, Deeply : The Alan Rickman Diaries - Google Books

The Tech starts. Memorable moment in the wings as Helen says: “I’m so happy ... all I dreamed of as a girl was to be a queen in a big theatre …” Hanging about in the Concorde Room for the 5.05 to Newark … This [ A Little Chaos] is the kind of work I make. If I am to be disallowed then – I just stop. Sheekey’s. In a day of memorable moments … it was capped by having Bill Clinton come over to our table to say hello. I say “Mr President” to remind myself that he was that, rather than another actor or the maître d’ … Ruby [Wax], [husband and film/TV producer] Ed [Bye] & kids, Harbour Club. One of [Ruby’s son] Max’s friends is an indication of what’s to come. “Are you Snape?” Here I am with Dan, Emma and Rupert 10 (?) years on (Emma is here on a break from Brown University), blood all over my throat from an imagined Nagini [Voldemort’s pet snake], the three of them still with furrowed brows and panting a bit. Finding it hard to remember any particular scenes over the years mainly because all the decisions are taken in committee rooms and not on the floor. We listen as DY [director David Yates] tells us what we are thinking and why (and in some cases recounts the story … ) and a small piece of something creative caves in.

Absolute pillar to post – from the euphoric yesterday [London had just won the 2012 Olympics] to the numbness of today. A bus and three? Four? stations. Hundreds injured and (as of today) 37 killed. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. So here he is bristling when Stephen Frears won’t chip in for a meal (“You’re in a hit film, aren’t you?”). Ewan McGregor is taxonomised as “self-involved to a jaw-dropping degree” while David Hare is “more self-involved than any actor I have ever met”. Alan Rusbridger is “as ever, it seems, devoid of questions or curiosity or life, really”.