From 1972, Alan Rickman kept a pocket diary in which he noted appointments, anniversaries, opening nights and addresses. In 1992, he started to produce a much fuller account of his life and work and bought diaries from a local stationer’s that gave him a page a day to play with. These number 26 volumes, several of which are colourfully and beautifully illustrated.
Why he kept a diary is unclear. Diarists come in all shapes, and their reasons for recording their lives are similarly diverse. Some people want to bear witness to earth-shattering events while others are content to detail what appears to be trivia but which, with the passage of time, acquires enduring significance. What follows is an edited account of the nearly 11 years defined by Rickman’s role as Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films.
Alan Taylor, editor of the diaries
2000
23 August
6.30pm Pile into the car and drive to Siena to get to Il Campo before dark. To the Patio Bar where, around 8pm, I called LA and said OK to HP [Harry Potter].
24 August
Around the pool and feeling a bit nothing about HP which really disturbs me – or is it because I’m reading Martin Amis’s Experience which charts A Life …
6 September
A day by the pool. Talking to Judy [Hofflund, Rickman’s manager] – the bargaining goes on … (HP).
Lightning in the mountains.
10 September
Perfect day. Still, sunny. To the pool. Finish [reading] HP 1, start 2.
21 September
HARRY P TAKES OFF.
10.30am Car to costume fitting/discussion. Measurements from hell after a month in Italy. Waltz around each other – higher collar? Blue fabric? Thinner arms? And off to Leavesden Studios. Chris Columbus [director], David Heyman [producer], Makeup dept waiting. Wig? Nose?
6 October
First conversation with Joanne Rowling. Her sister answers – “She’s not here – can I leave a message?” [There is] cackling in the background … “Sorry about that! … ” [I tell her:] “There are things that only Snape & you know – I need to know … ” “You’re right [she replies] – call me tomorrow; no one else knows these things.”
7 October
Talk to Joanne Rowling again and she nervously lets me in on a few glimpses of Snape’s background. Talking to her is talking to someone who lives these stories, not invents them. She’s a channel – bubbling over with, “Well, when he was young, you see, this, that and the other happened” – never, “I wanted so & so … “
8 October
2pm 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?”
10 October
HARRY POTTER BEGINS.
11am Kings X for train to Newcastle, and then car to Alnwick Castle [AKA Hogwarts] and a (three-hour … ) makeup for camera test. Criss-crossing of pluses and minuses – pale face = v ageing; false nose-piece needs heavy makeup etc. General atmosphere is friendly and a mite chaotic.
7.45pm To the tapas restaurant with Sean [Biggerstaff] and Robbie Coltrane for many plates of deep-fried indulgences before going to the hotel for red wine and a bag of chocolates from the mini-bar. Hopeless …
11 December
7am Back to Harry P. The Great Hall with Maggie Smith, Zoë Wanamaker, Ian Hart, Richard Harris – all in their ways sweet, funny souls. But this is Tick Off The Shots filming – no big speech about the scene and what we’re all thinking. Maybe there isn’t time … Maybe … Too many people involved in the decisions. A hat has been made for Snape. A hat? For Snape? Fortunately Chris Columbus is also a sweet, funny soul and you kind of guess what he’s thinking, what he wants. Certainly if you step outside that he’s in sharpish. So it gets done. And it all looks just fine.
29 December
7.45pm Edna O’Brien. In four hours or so, Edna tells us tale after tale of Beckett, Pinter – “When I see him on Monday he will say immediately: ‘You have seen The Caretaker, of course’ – ‘No, I have been away’ – ‘Well, then you have seen Betrayal.’ The trouble is writers write from pain and Harold has closed up all his wounds, so all he can write now are these small things.”
31 December
8.30pm Pam & Mel Smith. A lovely way to end a year. Friends, fireworks and singing Beatles, Elton John, Billy Joel songs around the piano.
2001
2 February
7.30pm The Graduate to see Jerry Hall. She is an amazing woman. Onstage you get hints of the offstage warmth.
19 February
LAST DAY ON HP.
At the end of the day, Hedwig the owl flies the length of the Great Hall and drops the Nimbus 2000 in Harry’s lap. Dave, the trainer, hadn’t slept worrying about it all. Simple, amazing things.
7 June
ELECTION DAY.
10.45pm To Jon Snow’s house. Michael Foot there. A lonely figure, victim of Parkinson’s, but still caught up in it all.
11 September
NEW YORK TRADE CENTER ATTACK.
11.30am Rehearse [for Private Lives, in London, with Lindsay Duncan]. Run Act 1. As the dance rehearsal is about to begin, the first report from New York comes in. Total shock. All rehearsal becomes an acute, flattening irrelevance but we do it anyway.
Eventually back home at 7.30 and just watch it over and over on TV as if to imprint it on the brain, the psyche, the life really … That plane was like watching a knife go into butter.
14 September
11am Three minutes’ silence which we shared with Kiss Me Kate cast.
Supper at home. Watching more coverage. Still trying to understand something. Cannot remove the fact of 4 million starving in Afghanistan not to mention the innocents in Iraq. There is such political naivety in the US that it only takes one image of five Palestinians dancing in the street to obliterate the bigger picture.
23 October
David Heyman calls to tell me how brilliant I am in HP … At home, faxes about the press junket which is huge and impossible. The DH phone call was, of course, a coincidence …
4 November
HARRY POTTER PREMIERE.
6.30pm The film should only be seen on a big screen. It acquires a scale and depth that matches the hideous score by John Williams. Party afterwards at the Savoy is much more fun.
4 December
2pm 66 Harley Street. [Cardiologist] Rodney Foale (I like him) and the results of all the heart checks. All is fine, apart from one sheet showing high blood pressure and meaning less red wine late at night.
15 December
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’ …
2002
9 January
Refit the Harry P costume. A bit of taking in is necessary.
14 January
HARRY POTTER 2.
6.50am pick-up (writing this with the wide-awake-at-2am thing) Nice to see them all again but it’s a dreamlike thing, as if it has never stopped. And in a way, it hasn’t – and won’t …
Richard Harris is enveloped in flu – a cue for Maggie Smith to encase her face in a scarf.
Mind-blowing exhaustion by the end of the day. Somehow one hour’s sleep is not quite enough. Back to the hotel for a club sandwich, chips, red wine, Ground Force and bed.
31 January
[Rickman’s wife] Rima’s birthday. It’s a long time since we’ve been together on Jan 31st.
2 April
HP.
7.15 pick-up Up in the Quidditch tower with Miriam Margolyes (about to be OBE and 20lbs lighter – as she tells me in her fairly inimitable way) and Jason Isaacs – who has just become a dad for the first time. The usual nodding-heads-at-numbers scene but quicker this time and we’re out by lunchtime.
18 May
8pm show [Private Lives, now transferred with the same cast to Broadway] After which we discover that Nicole Kidman & Tobey Maguire arrived half-hour late. Why come in?
26 May
6.30pm Liam [Neeson] & Natasha [Richardson, his wife]. Two-hour drive upstate to their glorious house and dinner with John [Benjamin] Hickey & Jennifer [Carpenter] from The Crucible plus – oh, Meryl’s in there … as in Streep. Who turns out to be fun and gossipy. But it’s hard – who else looks like Meryl Streep? So you can’t quite lose the stare.
27 May
Lunch on a terrace with the boys and us. Tash is the most miraculous hostess. Nothing is forgotten.
4pm Dan Day-Lewis arrives to play tennis.
11 September
Decide not to fly home until tomorrow. Everything too rushed and the rush seemed disrespectful. The TV coverage is mercifully restrained and unbearably moving when it is utterly personal – mothers, fathers, children holding up pictures, sitting among the flowers at Ground Zero.
16 September
LOVE ACTUALLY FIRST DAY.
21 October
8pm [To] Wembley Arena for Coldplay concert. They were wonderful – every song close to being an anthem already and incredibly moving to see that many people knowing the lyrics. In the bar backstage, Gwyneth Paltrow introduced herself (more beautiful off screen) and then [we] met the group in the inner sanctum with Richard Curtis.
25 October
2pm Brydges Place. Happy-sad talk of Ruby’s envy of touring around with friends in a play. Then there’s a cheeky visit to Sheekey’s, where they sit us down with a bottle of champagne … Both Ruby and I can feel a wheel turning. The fascination of “showbiz” is ever-thinning. The opportunities for only real work have to be nourished.
4 December
Talking to [agent] Paul Lyon-Maris about HP exit, which he thinks will happen. But here we are in the project-collision area again. Reiterating no more HP. They don’t want to hear it.
21 December
Trudie & Sting’s Christmas party. Byzantium meets Fairyland. They have built a red, ruched theatre where Richard E Grant read ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, Zenaida Yanowsky danced The Nutcracker, the Razumovsky Ensemble played the Brandenburg Concerto and [violinist and conductor] Vasko Vassilev prodigied his way through the Carmen Fantasie. Around and about all that was fantastic food and beautiful wine & Krug champagne. But perhaps best of all was the chance to talk to Elton John & David [Furnish] about Safe [Sponsored Arts for Education, Kenyan charity] and elicit their support.
2003
8 February
Watching Martin Bashir’s documentary on Michael Jackson. Disgraceful, self-serving journalism. How much did that cost? Compare MJ’s actions with those of a million pederasts & paedophiles a day or the thousands of kids dying daily in South Africa from Aids. Make a film about that with your concerned face.
15 February
12pm 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.
14 April
HARRY POTTER [3].
7am pick-up Top table stuff w. David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Warwick Davis.
More of the same really. But what else can you do except get the shots – a choir, 300 children, one speech. People reading in the background.
2 May
8.40am pick-up Corridor with Dan Radcliffe. He’s so concentrated now. Serious and focused – but with a sense of fun. I still don’t think he’s really an actor but he will undoubtedly direct/produce. And he has such quiet, dignified support from his parents. Nothing is pushed.
17 May
6pm Car to Chequers … Real sense of the shiver of history going through the gates.
7.30pm for 8. Arrive to find Ben Kingsley & wife, Peter Hain, others … then Richard & Judy arrive, then Tony & Cherie with three-year-old Leo in his arms, in pyjamas.
Dinner for 25. Tony hanging around at the door to talk to me. (Was I the only known critic?) I mentioned Safe, Rima in the Lords and blacklists in the US – not bad for four minutes.
On leaving I said: “Well, thank God you’re in the room with those maniacs [members of the Bush administration].” He raised an eyebrow or two and said: “Yes … it’s been … difficult.” And we drove away, TB silhouetted in the grand doorway in his off-white chinos and blue open-necked shirt.
26 June
8.30pm Zaika – dinner for Patty and John McEnroe. McEnroe is very sweet and loving with Patty [Smyth, his wife] and endearingly unegocentric and polite in other ways. I’m sure he’s a great dad and would be a fantastically loyal friend. Who would have guessed? Also – he doesn’t mind gossip – no one likes Rusedski.
30 July
7am pick-up Snape/Lupin Classroom.
The day got off to a fabulous start with the screen guillotining on to my head, a sudden, swift blackout followed by day-long melancholy. Alfonso [Cuarón, director] was quietly ballistic with me. I love him too much to let it last too long so I wailed offset and we sorted it out. He’s under the usual HP pressure and even he starts rehearsing cameras before actors, and these kids need directing. They don’t know their lines and Emma [Watson]’s diction is this side of Albania at times. Plus my so-called rehearsal is with a stand-in who is French.
10 October
9.45am Pick-up to start the Love Actually junket.
4pm Golden Square – screening of Love Actually. Me, Martine McC[utcheon] and two of her friends. Actually, she’s one of the best things in the film. Unaffected, truthful and direct.
12 November
Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“So this is a chick flick?”
“No, it’s more of a dick flick.”
I got beeped but we were away with the horrors of Toby Keith singing American Soldier only minutes away. I’m on the sofa with a stand-up, a boy trumpeter and one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Slightly scary.
2004
23 May
NEW YORK.
4pm Harry Potter 3. World Premiere.
Arriving at Radio City was like being a Beatle. Thousands of fans screamed as we got out of cars. Mostly for Daniel Radcliffe but a rush for everyone. Not to mention walking out on to the stage to 6,000.
Alfonso has done an extraordinary job. It is a very grown-up movie, so full of daring that it made me smile and smile. Every frame of it is the work of an artist and storyteller. Stunning effects that are somehow part of the life of the film, not show-off stunts. Later back to the hotel w. Ariel Dorfman, who takes egomania to utterly charming heights. He just loves being him.
8 June
11.30am Mansion House for Rada lunch – 1.15pm (with The Queen).
The snapshots would be of milling about, people looking suddenly older, some in hats and palaver, men in red uniforms holding pikestaffs (the ones in glasses letting the side down). A feeling of having to accept our place in the Establishment, or not. Vivienne Westwood was there, for heaven’s sake. The Queen in yellow, laughing at Richard Wilson. But mostly – looking up to the gallery at the T-shirted students looking down – the sense of 30 years. And a shy pride at being there once.
28 September
HP [4].
7.55am pick-up Smacking the backs of Daniel [Radcliffe] & Rupert [Grint]’s heads – doubtless a fuss will ensue about corporal punishment.
11 November
7.15am pick-up In Dumbledore’s office with Maggie … My speech is unlearnable. So some serious laughing goes on. Plus Maggie’s stories of the Ladies in Lavender premiere: “Miriam Margolyes looked like a Sherman tank in sequins.”
13 December
HP. LAST DAY?
7am pick-up Last scene with Pedja [actor Predrag Bjelac] who I rudely described as [like] working with a sideboard on wheels. Nothing to do with him as a (complex, delightful) person but more to do with the way he manages to bang into you at any opportunity.
I feel so shafted on this film with all Mike’s [director Mike Newell] best motives. He’s under pressure (like Alfonso) and everything is about the shot. We only talk about the scene on about take four. Plus ça change.
2005
7 July
THE DAY THE BOMBS HIT LONDON.
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.
Bush has the nerve to talk of “the killing of innocent people” and Blair feels it necessary to use his “I am moved” voice. Real tragedy wherever you look from whatever angle but threaded with hypocrisy as ever.
Newsnight has Paxman pressing his tired old buttons on, of all people, Tony Benn, who as far as I can see is making perfect sense.
We stayed home all day. Answered worried phone calls. Watched TV. Stared at it all.
22 December
6–9pm Helena [Kennedy] and Iain [Hutchison]. Alastair Campbell on free and easy form. I gave him my little spiel on how I’ve never met a curious politician – one who asks questions rather than makes little speeches – exceptions, on reflection, are of course Neil Kinnock and now I think of it Robin Cook.
after newsletter promotion
2006
5 January
5am Wake up.
5.45am Driven to the hospital.
6am Pre-op. This is like a film set. Nothing seems real.
Remembering nothing but with that painkiller high in the recovery room. Attentive, caring people. [Throughout 2005, Rickman received treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It was decided that the best option was to remove the entire prostate, an operation carried out at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.]
9pm Rima goes back to the hotel after we watch with sublime irreverence Dancing With the Stars.
The new details de jour are all about various pain control positions or drugs and tubes seemingly everywhere.
8 January
7am The doctors come round and after dealing with catheters and drainage, finally, nervously get to the point – “How did you do the fall at the end of Die Hard?”
Check-out and to Hermitage Hotel for a week in Downtown Nashville. Dr Smith, Tour Guide, says Graceland is 200 miles (too far) away – suggests a visit to Jack Daniel’s brewery. Even though it’s a dry state, so no free samples.
30 January
Finally, yes to HP 5. The sensation is neither up nor down. The argument that wins is the one that says: “See it through. It’s your story.”
12 April
6.45am pick-up
I realise as soon as that [Snape’s] ring and costume go on – something happens. It becomes alien to be chatty, smiley, open. The character narrows me down, tightens me up. Not good qualities on a film set. I have never been less communicative with a crew. Fortunately, Dan [Radcliffe] fills that role with ease and charm. And youth.
5 May
… talking to Rima today – she lost her seat [on Kensington and Chelsea borough council, in local elections]. And that is seriously their loss and her freedom.
9 September
5.30am Wake up.
6am Cab to hospital.
Echoes of January.
Somewhere in here, pathetic behaviour from the Labour party – totally out of touch with the real world, institutionalised, cannibalistic, egomaniacal, bitter, twisted and stupid. Charles Clarke – never trust a man with two-day growth, who also stuffs his face that much. Blair, of course, nips off to Israel for a swift bit of statesmanship.
2007
14 February
Stayed in and watched the Brits. Liam Gallagher is a great rock singer but an absolute tosser as a person. Who cares about his little tantrums – come out from behind the hair & glasses and showy walk and witless rudeness.
26 March
8pm Supper w. Ruby & Ed. Ruby’s off to the Palace tomorrow as a Distinguished American. She thinks she’s parking in the Palace forecourt. We’ll see.
27 March
She did.
1 May
LONDON.
7pm Umu, Bruton Place. Ruby’s birthday party.
AA Gill is seated near Jennifer Saunders (who he has slagged off in print). Unsurprisingly, she won’t talk to him. It’s Ruby’s very own A-D list but since no one’s introduced to anyone it’s guesswork as to status. Bizarre placements create hot and cold patches as possible clues.
10 May
Tony Blair’s standing-down speech – he could have saved himself a great deal of time by just reprinting the lyrics to My Way.
20 July
[PUBLICATION DAY OF THE LAST HARRY POTTER.]
11.15pm Tunbridge Wells and Waterstones. I had guessed at 20 or 30 people waiting for midnight. Probably 300-400. And a queue moving slowly. One hour in the queue and it was time for action. Went to friendly security man. “Have you read the books?” No. “Have you seen the films?” One of them. “I’m in them.” Oh yes! There will be mayhem if I go into the queue. “I’ll get the manager.”
(Manager arrives.) “Oh! Hello!”
27 July
… I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus. This was a genuine rite of passage. One small piece of information from Jo Rowling seven years ago – Snape loved Lily – gave me a cliff edge to hang on to.
2008
4 February
HP 6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Day One.
Thank God I could do the coat up without visible strain at the seams.
7 February
8.15am pick-up Car park. Paparazzi. Freezing cloister of Gloucester Cathedral. A whole new working relationship, this time with Tom Felton [playing Draco Malfoy]. The story of this so-far-six-part epic is one minute there were all these little kids … now? Found Maggie in her trailer vulnerable and fuck-it – all at once.
10 February
9pm Watching the Bafta awards. The absence of Sweeney Todd rendered it meaningless. To whom should anyone complain? Pointless unless there’s a conspiracy. But year after year these events are given embarrassing and engorged prominence. It’s the acting/directing/whatever equivalent of the duck’s neck. Force fed to make foie gras.
10 March
The line “take out your wand” reduces Helena Bonham Carter to helpless mirth and will be a bit of a Waterloo come Thursday … Helen McCrory says she’s terrified but fits like a glove with the mayhem.
25 April
Russell Brand on Jonathan Ross.
I like Russell, but ohmigod I hate the faux-naif thing that’s inevitable when quirk meets ambition (see Gervais, R). Just be honest about it, you fuckers. Don’t give us “who me?” bullshit.
27 April
1pm The Priory to collect Ruby.
Hmm. So this is it … Big old white exterior, Ruby coming out as we drive up to the main door.
Lunch at Riva, Barnes. Back to the Priory for the tour. Yellow walls, claustrophobia, food smells, cheap wood cupboards in the rooms, small TV screens. Activities included Drama Workshop, Assertiveness and Craftworks (for Ruby?). But she battles bravely on, searching for the drug balance. We talk of old friends, the need for less friends, simpler lives, less ego. The constant, we-know-it-already, truth.
1 May
LONDON [MAYORAL] ELECTION.
Doze until 11.30. Coffee in the bar. Car at 12. Home. Go out to vote immediately. Woman with blue rosette foolishly asks for our number. “No,” snaps Rima. “Oh,” she says. “Oh well, variety … ” On the way out she tries again. “Hope to persuade you to … ” Foolish. A torrent of (calm) anti-Boris Johnson abuse falls from my lips, emboldened, no doubt, by my quote in today’s Guardian [“If Boris Johnson gets elected it would be a case of the lunatic having no clue how to run the asylum”]. The British electorate proving yet again that they never vote for anything. “Someone’s doing us down … let’s disown him.”
3 May
Warm enough to sit outside on the balcony. Coffee and Saturday’s Guardian dull the Boris Johnson nightmare. Fascist mayor of Rome, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, President McCain? Bush still there, Cameron at a gallop … God help us.
24 May
Sky News is full of anti-Brown propaganda. How depressing the English are … Cameron and his little band of droopy drawers are what they deserve.
5 November
OBAMA WINS.
3am To bed. And it looks as if the miracle has happened.
8am Back to the TV screen. It has – 52% of the US had a supreme act of imagination.
27 November
Write, appropriately, a thank-you but no-thank-you note declining the CBE.
29 December
1pm Lunch w. Dan Radcliffe at Cafe Cluny. One minute he was 12 now he’s 19. When did that happen? And he’s sensitive, articulate & smart. And owns a three-bed apt in NY.
2009
17 March
Today one of the saddest, most surreal days ever. An early call from Ralph Fiennes in New York – seven o’clock his time – with “terrible news”. Natasha [Richardson] has had a bad fall skiing in Canada, thought she was OK, then collapsed. She is now brain dead, Liam is flying up to bring her home so that people can say their goodbyes. Just that. All in one simple, devastated breath. When I put down the phone I must have sat in one place for an hour and then wandered. Left a message for Liam. Spent the day answering the phone and cancelling appointments. All in a daze.
Absolute unreality. That lass unparalleled, the world’s greatest host. Her life, her days, her every minute checked, cross-checked, crammed. Energy, glamour, talent, fury, compassion, generosity, ego, laughter, smoke, intelligence, wisdom, sarcasm, fun, speed, honesty, vulnerability, taste, improvisation, order. In the midst of the deepest laugh she knew how things should be. Except this.
28 June
1pm Lunch w. Neil and Glenys K [Kinnock] with James Naughtie and Ellie [his wife]. A great and glorious lunch with so much insider talk that the head still reels. Labour party hopeless, Gordon won’t take decisions, Mandelson (of course), mistrust of Miliband, grudging respect (I think) for Cameron’s cleverness. Neil appeared thrilled with our gift of a mint-condition Spitting Image board game – him, Gorbachev, Reagan, Thatcher etc. “Oh David Owen, he made a speech the other day, the word ‘I’ every other word.”
2 July
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.
9 July
HP 6. NEW YORK.
Party at the Natural History Museum. The desire to eat and even more get a drink is matched only by the need to bang the three Davids’ heads [Harry Potter producers David Heyman and David Barron, and director David Yates] against the nearest wall. I get the character development and the spiffing effects (dazzling), but where is the story????
25 November
HP [7].
6.15am pick-up To the Flight Shed …
Cold, wet, draughty but the crew seem miles away so Ralph and I can just get on with inching our way towards the scene. David Y stubborn as ever about V[oldemort] killing me with a spell. (Impossible to comprehend, not least the resultant wrath of the readers.) Great working with Ralph, though. Direct and true and inventive and free.
Back home and Rima (narrative brainbox) says, “He can’t kill you with a spell – the only one that would do that is Avada Kedavra and it kills instantly – you wouldn’t be able to finish the scene.”
26 November
6.15am pick-up
The Death of Snape. Nearly 10 years later. At least it’s just down to two actors … David is vulnerable and endearing when he’s excited. And he is by this scene. It’s the absolute example of what can happen when a couple of actors pick up a scene off the page and work with the story, the space and each other. Stuart Craig’s boathouse [set] gave it something ironic and everlasting. As I said at one point to David – it’s all a bit epic and Japanese.
2010
4 January
A day of waiting for the gasman … trying to negotiate the American healthcare system – everything starts with “How will you pay?” The hospital for special surgery is calling tomorrow – all this for a nagging but small, residual pain.
14 January
HP.
6.30am pick-up After a night of not sleeping at all. Scene 305. Or – The Last Breath of Severus 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.
25 February
6.15pm Car to Leicester Square. Alice in Wonderland premiere.
In the rain. Tough on all the been-there-for-hours fans. Sign/flash/flash. Line up for Charles & Camilla. He – “Are you still on Harry Potter?” She – “Haven’t seen you for ages.” Then the movie. Absolutely ravishing – strange and deep and complex and beautiful.
8 March
3.15pm To HP to rehearse with Michael Gambon. On the way back to the trailer Michael talks of his fear of learning/forgetting his lines. And then he tells me he’s doing Krapp’s Last Tape – what’s wrong with this picture??
10 March
Just me and Michael G. All day. He’s vulnerable after his illness and yesterday’s primer was no joke for him. The lines are a real problem for him. Technology helps and why not? It’s never great when it’s just a memory loss – no relaxation, no freedom, no contact. I’d have boards and autocue everywhere. And anyway when he unleashes a bit of magnificence it’s effortless and spellbinding.
29 March
LAST DAY ON HARRY POTTER.
6.15am pick-up
All a bit hard to believe. I think even Daniel was shocked by the finality. Cameras were everywhere, it seemed (docu ones). [I am asked] “So how does it feel?” Before you’ve felt it, before the feeling has a name. “It’s private,” I managed, “and I’m not sharing it with that” pointing at his lens.
Something is in those cans and it is finished. Thanks, Jo.
6 May
11.10am Car to Cipriani 42nd Street.
Back home and the TV tells us nothing conclusive in the UK except a hung parliament and Gordon lost. For once the polls are right.
7 August
1.45pm Car to Leavesden for the HP wrap party.
Almost every expense spared – at least in the food department. At 2.30pm little was left, anyway.
23 November
55 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” …
2011
7 February
7pm Bafta interview.
Not telling you what props I stole or what Jo Rowling said to me.
3 July
Men’s [Wimbledon] final Nadal v Djokovic. Unforgettable experience. Unforgettable day of contrasts. On the balcony of the main entrance and then in to lunch at the Duchess of Gloucester’s table. [The] wrong man [Djokovic] – all triumph and ego – won but Björn Borg came over and asked for a photograph. “Are you kidding?” I spluttered. John Major said: “You have given us so much enjoyment.” “I wish I could say the same of you,” was the unstoppable reply. He had the grace to laugh.
7 July
HP 7 PART 2. IT ALL ENDS.
To Trafalgar Square – which takes an hour. Once there, red carpets everywhere. A screen, a platform, an interviewer and thousands screaming and singing, “Snape, Snape, Severus Snape … ” The carpet snakes into Leicester Square for the film at 8pm.
I found it unsettling to watch – it has to change horses midstream to tell the Snape story and the camera loses concentration. Audience, however, very happy.
This is an edited extract from Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries, published by Canongate on 4 October at £25. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
