The much-loved actor, who died in 2016, was an avid diary-keeper. In this second extract from his journal, he takes us behind the scenes, while his wife, Rima Horton, reflects on his final days
Movie-goers caught their first sight of Alan Rickman in 1988 in the action thriller Die Hard. At the age of 42, antediluvian by Hollywood standards, he was cast as Hans Gruber, a Teutonic terrorist who has seized control of a Los Angeles skyscraper and taken hostages. Acting opposite Bruce Willis’s NYPD detective, Rickman stole the show with his devil-may-care interpretation of a psychopath and received a deluge of plaudits.
Until then his career had largely been forged in Britain, most notably – after Rada and an apprenticeship in repertory theatre – at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he stood out in plays such as Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Following Die Hard, he was in constant demand for the big screen. First came the 1990 romantic comedy Truly, Madly, Deeply, with Juliet Stevenson, next Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which he was unforgettable as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
