Alan Rickman: Remembering all the wonderful things he said about playing Harry Potter's Professor Snape

Rickman has died aged 69, his family have confirmed

Alan Rickman has sadly died at the age of 69, his family has confirmed.

The popular actor, best known for Harry Potter, Die Hard, Sense and Sensibility and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, had reportedly been suffering from cancer.

Rickman will be remembered by many for his role as Potions professor Severus Snape, a complex character whom readers first saw as a villain but slowly came to love when it was revealed he was hiding deep turmoil.

Author JK Rowling described Snape as a “gift of a character”, with boy wizard Harry describing him as “one of the bravest men I knew” at the end of the bestselling novel series.

But no-one paid Snape as great a tribute as Rickman himself, who he called “fascinating” and had a “lot of fun impersonating” over the course of ten years.

YouTube user MsSardonicus made a video in 2012 from clips taken from various interviews with Rickman in which he talks lovingly about Snape.

“Snape. There was more to him that met the eye. It’s something unnameable. He lives within a very tight confines emotionally, physically. He lives a solitary kind of existence. Mysterious. He’s very focussed. Eventually you get to find out who he is. Innocence. Lost. Resentful. It’s been a complete privilege.”