Alan Rickman Almost Did Not Do His Debut Hollywood Flick Die Hard (Photo Credit – IMDb)
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Alan Rickman, who shot to fame with the role of Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter movies, played the iconic role of the baddie Hans Gruber in Bruce Willis starrer Die Hard. Rickman, who had vast theatre experience, almost said no to the movie but decided to finally go ahead with it after a small but crucial observation in the script. Scroll down to read more.
Rickman died in 2016 after he lost the battle with cancer. While alive, the late actor maintained a detailed journal called Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries where he often wrote about his personal and professional observations. Rickman’s debut movie Die Hard raked-in a massive $140 million at the box office sparking a five-film franchise.
Alan Rickman, according to The Hollywood Reporter, spoke about how he landed the role despite being initially unimpressed with the script. Speaking at a film festival, Rickman asserted, “I read it and I said ‘what the hell is this, I’m not doing an action movie.’ And agents and people said ‘Alan, you don’t understand this doesn’t happen, you’ve only been in LA two days and you’ve been asked to do this film.’”
Alan Rickman, who at the age of 41 came to LA for the movie meetings, continued, “I was just thinking: ‘If I was wearing a suit and not all of this terrorist gear, then maybe there could be a scene where I put on an American accent’, and he thinks I’m one of the hostages.” The actor had left a note about the same on producer Joel Silver’s table.
Rickman continued, “Then I went back to England, and I kind of got the Joel Silver: ‘Get the hell out of here, you’ll wear what you’re told,’ and I said, ‘OK, fine.’
The ‘A Little Chaos’ actor further shared, “And then I came back and they handed me the new script. So, you know, it just pays to occasionally use a little bit of theater training when you’re doing a movie.”
It was also reported that Alan Rickman said yes to Bruce Willis’ Die Hard because he picked up minor details in the script which usually go unnoticed like the characters of colour in the film were shown to be competent, intelligent and clever throughout.
Interestingly, in 2015, Rickman in an interview claimed that the Die Hard “script wasn’t stupid. Stupider films have been made trying to be it since. It’s genuinely witty and every Black character is strong in it.”
