ALAN RICKMAN
Alan Rickman plays Severus Snape, Potions Professor and head of Slytherin House.
Alan Rickman is one of the UK's most respected film, television and theatre actors and famed throughout the world for his performances in films as diverse as: Die Hard; An Awfully Big Adventure; Bob Roberts; Truly Madly Deeply; Close My Eyes; The January Man and Galaxy Quest.
He also starred in Mesmer for which he was named Best Actor at the Montreal Film Festival. For Sense & Sensibility and Michael Collins he received BAFTA nominations and for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves he won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. For Truly Madly Deeply, Close My Eyes and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves he was named Evening Standard Film Actor of the Year. Recent films include: Blow Dry; The Search for John Gissing and Play (directed by Anthony Minghella for Beckett on Film).
For his role as the enigmatic Russian monk in HBO's Rasputin, Rickman won the 1996 Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor. Other television credits include: Benefactors; Revolutionary Witness; Spirit of Man; Pity in History; Barchester Chronicles; Busted; Therese Raquin and Romeo & Juliet.
As a director Rickman's work includes Wax Acts with Ruby Wax in the West End and The Winter Guest by Sharman MacDonald at both the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London. He then went on to direct (and co-write with Macdonald) the feature film version of The Winter Guest starring Emma Thompson. It was an Official Selection for the Venice Film Festival winning three awards and later won Best Feature at the Chicago Film Festival.
Rickman is equally famed for his theatre work. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company he starred in Les Liaisons Dangereuses both in the West End and on Broadway where he was nominated for a Tony Award. Other productions for the RSC include: Memphisto; Troilus and Cressida; As You Like It; Love's Labours Lost; Anthony and Cleopatra; Captain Swing and The Tempest. Most of his stage work however has been in contemporary theatre and includes: Fears and Miseries of the Third Reich at the Glasgow Citizens; The Carnation Game and The Summer Party at the Crucible Sheffield; Commitments and The Last Elephant at the Bush Theatre; Bad Language at the Hampstead Theatre Club; The Grass Widow; The Lucky Chance and The Seagull at the Royal Court.
For the National Theatre Rickman starred in Anthony & Cleopatra and played the title role in Hamlet at Riverside Studios directed by Robert Sturua, the celebrated director of the Rustaveli Theatre in Georgia. Rickman has also appeared three times at the Edinburgh Festival - a double bill of The Devil is an Ass and Measure for Measure which also toured Europe; Brothers Karamazov which then toured the USSR and Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the end of Winter which later transferred to the West End winning Rickman the Time Out Award for Best Actor. Rickman is due to star in Noel Coward's Private Lives at the Albery theatre.
