Vintage Rickman
He has played villainous Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films and Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd, but Alan Rickman’s next role is vastly different, as he explains to Shereen Low
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ALAN Rickman may have more than two decades’ worth of acting experience, but his latest film role took him on a real learning curve.
The London-born actor admits he had to brush up on his shaky wine knowledge to play British sommelier Steven Spurrier in new movie Bottle Shock.
“I didn’t know a lot. I’m just like anyone else who goes out to the wine store to get a bottle of wine for dinner,” he says.
“I don’t sit around comparing wines with no relationship to eating, or friends, or functions.
“And it’s taken a while, but if I know anything at all, I realise now I do have the guts to send a bottle of wine back – which, of course, in teenage years, would never have happened. You would drink this stuff, go ‘cor’ and then carry on drinking it. But if it’s corked, I know what that smells and tastes like and I send it back. That’s about as far as I can go, to be honest.”
It might sound like nice work if you can get it, but Alan confesses that he didn’t get the chance to do any drinking on the job.
“It was grape juice on the set,” he adds.
Bottle Shock, which also stars Bill Pullman as an American vintner, tells the story of events leading up to the 1976 Paris blind wine-tasting competition, when Californian wine beat out the French offerings. The event sent shock waves around the wine world and came to be known as the Judgment of Paris.
The 63-year-old – who has worked on blockbusters such as the Harry Potter films, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street – relished working on a smaller-budget, independent movie.
“I read it and kept turning the pages. That’s what it gets down to a lot of the time. Sometimes, you have to take a shovel to get the page over. It’s a great story,” he says.
“I had no clue about it (the Judgment Of Paris) actually happening. That was news to me. It was full of rich, diverse characters that you can’t pin down, any of them, and complex relationships in a beautiful place. I was apprehensive at first, but then I knew it was based on somebody else’s script. You just trust sometimes.”
Alan recalls contacting the real Steven Spurrier when he agreed to the part.
“I spoke to him on the phone and got his blessing to steal his name. In a way, I’ve just borrowed the name and the circumstance. I am no impersonation of Steven Spurrier because it wouldn’t really be appropriate.”
The actor is no stranger to playing real-life characters – he has won awards for his portrayals of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin and Irish politician Eamon de Valera.
“They were actual historical characters and you have a responsibility to those people, so you have to do an awful lot of homework,” he reveals.
“They were dead, but they’re also two characters where there are people who think they’re fabulous while other people think they’re awful. I liked being constricted by a character. At least you know what your boundaries are to some extent.”
But Alan tries to stay objective about who he’s playing.
“The last thing you ever do is put labels on the character you’re playing. You don’t judge them yourself; you take in the information,” he says.
As well as learning a lot about wine, Alan says filming Bottle Shock made him more aware of the differences between the English and Americans.
“It’s different being an English person with an American person. I’m aware of those differences in languages, not just for obvious reasons,” he says.
“If Bill were to say to me, ‘you’re quite good’, I would be so insulted by that. But that’s a compliment for an American. To an English person, it’s like saying, ‘it’s OK’. Words have different power in different countries. There’s a moment in the movie when Bill calls me a snob and, hopefully, I sound surprised.
“As an English person, to be called a snob is much, much worse than it is perhaps for an American to use that word. We had a lot of discussion about that line because I wasn’t sure about it as a piece of writing. But that’s to do with my reaction as an Englishman – that word. It’s very emotional. That’s a lot to do with being from the upper classes and you don’t get criticised. I tell people I’m a minion, that’s who I am.
“You’re playing something with a class system still, and you’re walking into a country that doesn’t really have one, or at least not in the same way. But it’s something that England still has to deal with.”
Alan was glad to be reunited with Bill, whom he worked with in Nobel Son, and to be introduced to veteran star Dennis Farina.
“Well, it’s quite adversarial, the relationship (with Bill) in this, and that’s a good thing, so you’re certainly fighting your corner. When you meet someone like Dennis, you just go with the flow,” he says.
“There’s no point in doing anything else. That’s the strength of it. Time marches on and you learn where to put your energies, and that’s being with Dennis because there’s no point in trying to steer the ship in a different direction. That’s the mirror of that relationship.”
Alan has played villains before, but his memorable role to date is Severus Snape in Harry Potter, the one topic he won’t speak about.
“I don’t talk about Harry Potter,” he says.
“Roles kind of pick you in a way. It’s a weird tyranny out there. And you have to keep looking in the mirror because the roles that picked you five years ago will be discarding you now. It’s shifting sand.”
Bottle Shock will be released in cinemas on Friday, March 20.
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born in Hammersmith on February 21, 1946.
He started off in theatre before moving into TV. He hasn’t acted on stage recently, but directed a play, Creditors, in London last year.
He met his long-time girlfriend, politician Rima Horton, in 1965.
He’s not fussed about fatherhood: “I love to travel and I don’t have children, so there is a certain freedom.”
He may play brutes on screen, but in real life, he’s a softie at heart: “If somebody says something forcefully, I’ll fight my corner, but I’ll always give in.”
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