One of the most complex characters from Harry Potter is Severus Snape. We often see him as a nasty teacher – but in the end, he is on the right side. To play this convincingly, actor Alan Rickman even received secret insider information.
Who is Alan Rickman? The British actor and director made his breakthrough in the film industry with his first feature film Die Hard (1988) in the role of the terrorist Hans Gruber.
Before that, Rickman had already made a name for himself in the world of theater and in British TV productions.
In addition to Harry Potter, he is also seen in numerous other well-known films. These include, for example, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves (1991), Love Actually (2003), The Last Show of Snow (2006), Perfume (2006), and Sweeney Todd (2007).
Alan Rickman passed away in 2016 at the age of 69 from his cancer.
In “Die Hard,” Alan Rickman had his cinematic breakthrough:
Severus Snape – an ambivalent character
In the films, and especially in the books of Harry Potter, we usually see Severus Snape as an extremely biased teacher. He only cares for his own house – Slytherin. Students from the hated house Gryffindor, on the other hand, are sometimes practically bullied.
One might get the idea that Snape is a classic villain. However, in the last part, we learn more about his background, and it becomes clear: Snape is actually on the right side of the wizarding war.
For such a “revelation” to seem credible to the audience, the new understanding must fit with what has been shown so far. This can pose a significant challenge for the actors. If you don’t know a character’s background, you cannot portray it subtly.
What did the actors know? The first film – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – was released in 2001. Filming began in October 2000. At that time, only the first four books of the later seven-part series were on the market.
Therefore, most actors only had this knowledge available. However, since Snape’s background is only explored in detail in the seventh part, this was not known to most at the beginning of filming.
Keeper of the secret from day one
Alan Rickman was different. In order to embody his role as Snape as best as possible, he received a crucial piece of information from author J.K. Rowling even during the filming of the first movie.
However, he kept exactly what that information was secret until his death.
She [J.K. Rowling] gave me a tiny piece of information that I have always said I would never share with anyone, and I never did, and I never will.
– Alan Rickman (via independent)
Even in his diaries, which were published in 2023 under the title Madly, Deeply: My Diaries. 1993 to 2015, he describes his knowledge vaguely as “a few insights into Snape’s background”.
Was the secret ever revealed? The information Rickman had at his disposal will fortunately not remain an eternal secret. Shortly after the actor’s death in January 2016, J.K. Rowling decided to enlighten the fans:
“I told Alan what lies behind the word ‘always’.” (via Twitter)
Dying Potter fans know that this one word, better known in the original English as “always”, tells them everything they need to know.
A word says more than a thousand words
What does “always” mean? The quote comes from a scene in the last part. There we learn that Snape still clings to Harry’s deceased mother, Lily Potter. For her, Snape tried for all those years to protect Harry. When Dumbledore asks, “After all this time?”, he only replies with “Always”.
This moment represents a decisive turning point in the perception of Snape. Here we discover that Snape’s main motive all those years was still his almost obsessive love for Lily.
How did this affect the films? It makes perfect sense that Rowling decided to share this particular piece of information with Alan Rickman. Looking back at the films, you can beautifully see how Rickman could subtly incorporate this knowledge into his acting.
Already when he looks at Harry for the first time, there is much more in his gaze than just hatred.
Rickman also refused to play scenes that would not have fit the character afterward. For example, producer David Hayman reported to the LA Times:
It was also quite amusing because there were moments when a director told Alan what to do in a scene, and he would respond with something like, “No, I can’t do that – I know what’s going to happen, and you don’t.”
All in all, it was probably a very good decision to entrust Alan Rickman with this little piece of information. The films benefited from it, and he kept the secret until the end.
Things went differently for “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington. The actor who played the character Jon Snow once revealed a major series secret to avoid getting a parking ticket: Kit Harington revealed a major secret from Game of Thrones – Did not get a ticket for it
