Alan Rickman quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Alan Rickman on Wise Famous Quotes.

That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.

I don't think it's right that everybody knows everything about me.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

You try to find things that are challenging and interesting and hopefully it will be the same to the audience.

I like it when stories are left open.

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

Why don't I like you?"
"Because you think I'm an asshole, and I'm not really, I'm just British and, well, you're not.

The audience should feel like voyeurs. Their response is absolutely crucial.

My definition of palatable might be slightly different from yours.

Give me a window and I'll stare out it.

Parts win prizes, not actors.

Talent is an accident of genes, and a responsibility.

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

On film you put all your energies into a single glance.

I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.

You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.

England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.

The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.

I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh, in many ways I am coming home.

Actors are actually very supportive of each other.

Unless we tell stories about ourselves, which is all that theater is, we're in deep trouble.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

There is nothing wrong with a man being a Feminist, I think it is to our mutual advantage.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don't like what's being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

I have this feeling that if I could sort out what's on my dining room table, everything would fall into place.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

We're dead as a species if we don't tell stories, because then we don't know who we are.

Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.

A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.

Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.

The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.

From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.

It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.

Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.

I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.

Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.

I'm a lot less serious than people think.

Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.

If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.

Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.

I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.

I am the character you are not supposed to like.

I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.

I love working in New York theater.

What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.

A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.

I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.

I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.

Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.

So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.

If you judge the character, you cant play it.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously

My idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.

I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.

There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.

The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.

A wounding tongue. I'm working on it. Perhaps its the Celt in me.

If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.

I don't play villains, I play very interesting people

My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.