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Alan Rickman, Harry Potter and Die Hard Actor, Dies Aged 69
- bluedevil2k 11y agoHe played memorable roles, and his legacy will definitely live on as Professor Snape - my kids are starting through the Harry Potter series and love/hate seeing him every time on screen.
- unfortunateface 11y agoI feel like i've had my heart cut out, with a spoon.
- mcphage 11y agoWhy a spoon, cousin?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jalfresi 11y agoBecause it's dull you idiot, it hurts more.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- venomsnake 11y agoNote to trigger happy downvoters - the above exchange is verbatim from a movie of Mr. Rickman.
- celticninja 11y agoAs a bad guy he was amazing, Hans Gruber, Sheriff of Nottingham and Snape are probably the finest examples of his work in this area but he was never limited to just the bad guy he just played them so well when he did.
- fenomas 11y agoJohn Sessions told an anecdote on QI where a child asked Rickman why he always played villains, and he responded "I don't play villains... I play very interesting people". Video: https://youtu.be/5BYeI6Cn6dk?t=46s https://youtu.be/5BYeI6Cn6dk?t=46s
- venomsnake 11y agoWhile the three of them were antagonists, I would not qualify them as bad guys or villains. The only really bad guy I can remember he was playing was the judge in Sweeny Todd.
- maxerickson 11y agoGruber killed people because it made his robbery more convenient. He shoots the corporate dipshit guy in the head just to emphasize that he is serious. How much more villainous can you get?
- gadders 11y agoDon't judge.
- spike021 11y agoAgreed for Snape's character.
- celticninja 11y agoReally? Gruber was an out and out thief and murderer who used terrorism as a front for his plans. The Sheriff was also a proper villain, doing whatever he could to try and ensure he ended up on the throne. I concede on Snape.
- venomsnake 11y agoBut if everyone has just given what Gruber wanted no one would have gotten hurt. They open the safe, move out with the money and everyone but Bruce Willis' career is happy.
- dovdov 11y agoI guess my generation came to the age where we start losing our child-, teen-, and adulthood stars. At least we still got the Kardashians and EDM. /s RIP Hans Gruber :')
- Pxtl 11y agoWhat's wrong with edm?
- rwmurrayVT 11y agoNothing. GP likes to believe his generation was God's gift to Earth and seems to forget the generation above his probably didn't like rock and roll. Classic baby boomer.
- code_chimp 11y agoBy Grabthar's Hammer, you will be missed.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoBy Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Wavern -- you will be missed. Like many really famous actors, at some point in his career it just became Alan Rickman, in <MOVIE-TITLE-HERE> But that was okay. His Die Hard appearance was phenomenal. I'll never forget the movie Galaxy Quest. I cannot miss Alan, for I did not know him. But I liked a bunch of art he created, and I will be sad thinking that he will not be able to create any more of it.
- kunai 11y agoBowie on Monday, now Rickman on Thursday. Both were 69. Both were fighting cancer. And both were veritable giants both on and off stage. I feel like someone's gutted me of emotion and left me cold and numb — which is kind of funny considering I've never met or spoken to either. It's truly a wonder how much celebrities and great artists can shape us and shape our society. Today has been a dark, dark week for the world of performance art. He will be missed.
- melling 11y agoHopefully, we get a successful "Cancer Moonshot". The war on cancer is almost 50 years old. I was recently surprised to learn that pancreatic cancer is becoming treatable, at least in some cases: http://www.cancermoonshot2020.org http://www.cancermoonshot2020.org
- venomsnake 11y agoAnd Lemmy a week before. It has been a reaper's gale month for some of the finest artists in the world. Rickman will be missed. He managed to put a lot of life into any story.
- teddyh 11y agoInteresting fact: he got his actual career started remarkably late: http://www.cracked.com/article_19655_5-famous-late-bloomers.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19655_5-famous-late-bloomers....
- overcast 11y agoThat's crazy. Fourty-Six, and his first role was Die Hard!
- herbig 11y agoHe was a stage actor. His career didn't start with film. This article makes it seem like he was struggling to be a success long after he should have quit. They just have a completely wrong definition of success.
- sageikosa 11y agoBritish actors jumping back and forth between TV, stage and film are far more common than in America. If they don't maintain a certain amount of stage work, they must lose some British acting creds.
- gadders 11y agoPretty much. Stage acting is considered more prestigious.
- SuddsMcDuff 11y agoHe didn't get his first stage role until 42. I think the point still stands.
- vidarh 11y agoHe had roles on stage at least as early as 1978, so 32 or younger.
- yaskyj 11y agoAlso, his first TV role was in 1978. And even his age during Die Hard was wrong. Born in 1946, Die Hard came out in 1988 so ~42
- vermontdevil 11y agoBy Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall not be forgotten!
- unwind 11y agoHow sad. This is a semi-dupe of this, btw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900974 (different source but same real-world event).
- lionize 11y agoSad news, however how is this related to Hackery?
- lanmanl 11y agoPrepare to be downvoted you clod. HN is about hacking and obituaries.
- TillE 11y agoDavid Bowie was sort of justifiable as a tech person, but this is just weird. HN has never been a general news site.
- footpath 11y agoIf you look up the term "dies" in HN Search, you can find obituaries for all kinds of people submitted to HN in the past, from Gabriel García Márquez to Roger Ebert to Kim Jong Il.
- tempodox 11y agoIf you had ever been to Hogwarts you wouldn't need to ask that. Professor Snape will be missed.
- ianamartin 11y agoYippie ki yay, you awesome mother fucker. Dammit, this makes me really sad.
- overcast 11y agoI'm not usually affected by news like this, but I'm actually sad. This guy was awesome.
- marincounty 11y agoThis one got me to.
- odilontalk 11y agoThe same here :(
- workitout 11y agoI was just thinking about Die Hard the other day. He was brilliant in all his roles.
- ekianjo 11y agoJust watched Die Hard again couple of weeks ago, and every single time I watch it I love Rickman's excellent interpretation. Losing Bowie, now Rickman, 2016 starts with a heavy heart...
- thorin 11y agoAnd Lemmy!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sageikosa 11y agoI think it would have been hard for that movie (and Bruce Willis' movie career for that matter) to have been as successful if anyone else had tried to pull off that combination of intelligence, charm and malevolence.
- Shivetya 11y agohttp://sploid.gizmodo.com/alan-rickman-fell-for-real-in-die-hard-plus-six-other-f-1666327722 http://sploid.gizmodo.com/alan-rickman-fell-for-real-in-die-... His expression of surprise was real in Die Hard as the stunt crew dropped him on the count of one instead of three!
- david-given 11y agoSigh. It's time for tea. Epic tea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7V_WtAVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7V_WtAVg
- puppetmaster3 11y agoAn actor?
- venomsnake 11y agoThe Actor
- puppetmaster3 11y agoYes, actor. On a site about programming ( or derogatory slang: hacking). On first page, first item. It's not even science, let alone computer science. A CGI article would be more on topic.
- paulpauper 11y agobetween david bowie and this, cancer seems to be the midlife killer of choice . Much process has been made in heart disease, but cancer? Not so much. Once it's spread, you're dead. (2 years usually)
- ekianjo 11y ago> Once it's spread, you're dead. (2 years usually) OK, this is completely wrong. There are several cancers which do not kill THAT fast in the first place, and several that can be cured with pretty good confidence. And it's often a matter of how soon you detect it - if you find it at Stage I, you have much better odds than if you find it at Stage IV. Please stop generalizations like this.
- paulpauper 11y agothose are just the stats. Metastatic cancer is almost always fatal with an average survival of 2 years. That shows why more progress need to be made.
- maxerickson 11y agoThe GP's point is that you should specifically say metastatic cancer if you want to cite that statistic, not generalize it to cancer.
- paulpauper 11y agospread= metastatic
- maxerickson 11y agoYes, I understand that, but your comment is easy to read as being about all cancer, and an awful lot of treatment is done prior to it spreading. Much process has been made in heart disease, but cancer? Not so much. is really the problem, as early stage treatment has gotten vastly more effective over the last 20 years (My father succumbed to metastatic cancer in 1994, I pay some attention to the overall progress in addressing cancer).
- castell 11y agohttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000614/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000614/
- castell 11y agohttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000614/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000614/
- pmtarantino 11y agoI am very sad for this (I am a huge Harry Potter fan), but I can not let pass a curiosity of which this event is part of. Aaron Ramsey (Footballer player for Arsenal, UK) has a reputation for apparently killing off famous people when he scores. Whenever he scores someone famous tends to pass away, of course it is a big coincidence, but he did score yesterday too. Also scored last week, and David Bowie passed away. If you google it, he scored the previous day of the deaths of Colonel Gaddafi, Steve Jobs Osama Bin Laden and Whitney Houston, among others.
- tomp 11y agoDoesn't a "famous person" die almost every day?
- at-fates-hands 11y agoYes, but there is also a theory that celebs die in three's which is pretty interesting. A lot of researchers say this is because we as humans love patterns: “Patterns in death, patterns in misfortune – those are things that help us try to understand the universe or reality in a way that makes sense of it,” explains John Hoopes, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas who has written about the concept for Psychology Today. “In general, we’re very uncomfortable dealing with randomness.” http://www.nbcnews.com/health/celebrities-dont-really-die-3s-heres-why-you-think-they-6C10473732 http://www.nbcnews.com/health/celebrities-dont-really-die-3s...
- philh 11y agoI recall seeing a suggestion that "everything" happens in threes, in a meaningful sense. Something along the lines of: you take events which happen according to a poisson distribution with parameter L, and you define a cluster to be "any group of events which happen with no more than time L between adjacent ones", and then the expected size of a cluster is a little less than three. I'm probably misremembering the details, and I can't immediately find a source, but I thought this was interesting.
- jafingi 11y agoBrilliant actor. RIP.
- anmatapp 11y ago"You just... (long pause)... know." Really sad news.
- kozukumi 11y agoWow it has been a rather shit start to 2016 :(
- verytrivial 11y agoVale Alan Rickman. Personal aside: When driving, my partner and I always refer to a certain town west of London as Alan Richmansworth, I think simply because it is nice to think about him. Sad news.
- jwdunne 11y agoWhat a huge coincidence. My phone autocorrect Alan Rickman to that when talking about his passing with a friend. Very sad month, I have to admit.
- arethuza 11y ago"By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest
- Patient0 11y agoMy favourite bit of that movie (Rickman plays Sir Alexander Dane, a proud thespian whose once illustrious career has been destroyed by Galaxy Quest typecasting him into this humiliating role): Jason Nesmith: You WILL go out there. Sir Alexander Dane: I won't and nothing you say will make me. Jason Nesmith: The Show Must Go On. Sir Alexander Dane: ...Damn you.
- omegaham 11y agoMy favorite part is when they're in front of the supermarket. "... By Grabthar's hammer... what a savings." It's like he's contemplating his entire acting career and questioning how he got to this point in his life.
- ntoronto 11y agoIt's like he's contemplating his entire acting career and questioning how he got to this point in his life. That's my favorite Rickman scene as well. It takes a fine actor to pack 30 years of fictional history into a single line. I'll greatly miss his tremendous talents.
- Agustus 11y agoBecause I love that scene, and youtube hasn't DCMA'ed it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgv7U3GYlDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgv7U3GYlDY
- pjc50 11y ago.. riffing on not only Patrick Stewart and Alec Guinness, but also Rickman himself going from Serious Theatre to Hollywood action movies. Rickman clealy had a lot of fun playing villains; apparently he improvised or re-wrote most of his lines in Robin Hood, making it hilarious.
- snake_plissken 11y ago"Due to the Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed around the globe, they are about to be taught a lesson in the real use of power. You will be witnesses."
- SuddsMcDuff 11y ago"What idiot put you in charge?" "You did, when you murdered my boss."
- tnecniv 11y ago"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."
- Todd 11y agoAnother great dies at 69 of cancer, days apart. Imagine all of the unknowns who die too early. I really hope we figure this out.
- yulaow 11y agoNot enough statistical data
- simonh 11y agoThen there was Lemmy (70) at the weekend, also cancer. I also heard a few days ago that a friend lost his father to cancer. It's been a bad week.
- raverbashing 11y agoWell, I guess the amount of alcohol, tobacco and other stuff consumed might have been a (small) factor
- logfromblammo 11y agoWell, apparently Joe Biden is going to jump-start our Apollo Program equivalent for cancer research. But as I know from my work on electronic medical records 2005-2007, most medical software is a godawful clusterfoo if you so much as scratch the gilding on the GUI with your fingernail. So if you have a bit of runway in front of you, there's a lot of money to be made in medical software that even does as little as keeping a unique, secure identity record for 300 million patients. I obviously don't, or I'd be doing it already.
- Joeri 11y agoIf anyone does do this, please don't enforce uniqueness. My dad is a doctor and he complains about medical software that assumes previously input data is correct and does things like preventing inputting a new patient just because their ss id is supposedly already registered to someone else. Then there are the classic data validation mistakes like assuming everyone has a first name and last name (some foreign nationals don't), assuming everyone has a birth date (some people don't know this), assuming addresses have streets, etc... Doctors see patients from all over the world, and the world is a pretty diverse place.
- ainiriand 11y agoAfter all this time? Always. RIP, Severus.
- mcv 11y agoFirst my mother, then David Bowie, now Alan Rickman. What is it about 69 that makes people die of cancer?
- kunai 11y ago<3 I'm so sorry about your mother. My sincerest condolences to you and your family.
- kitd 11y agoMy condolences. If it helps, she's in good company now.
- magic_beans 11y agoI'm so sorry. Giant hugs from me, internet stranger.
- snarfy 11y ago"End of line."
- EA 11y ago'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' and 'Love Actually' are my favorite AR movies.
- rileymat2 11y ago[the Sheriff has said he'll cut out Robin Hood's heart with a spoon] Guy of Gisborne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe? Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoNot much to say here other than he will be missed. I see a lot of commentary here about cancer vs heart disease and why one is so much better treated than another, but that's something of a fallacy. Cancer and heart disease are pretty much matched for cause of death in baby boomers. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/844382#vp_2 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/844382#vp_2 We're still very far away from guaranteeing long lifespans. Bowie and Rickman pass away at 69, but Doris Day is still around at 91. Gene Wilder is 82. Mel Brooks is 89. Age Vigoda is 94. Longevity is still a crapshoot.
- imglorp 11y agoMy favorite: Dogma. Bethany: Were they sent to Hell? Metatron: Worse. Wisconsin. For the entire span of human history.
- domfletcher 11y agoDitto, there's something very funny about the voice of god being so jaded and deadpan. My Fav: Tell a person you're the Metatron and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and suddenly everybody's a theology scholar! May I continue uninterrupted?
- bradleyjg 11y agoAnother vote for that role as my favorite. The bedroom scene at the beginning would make a great actor's audition piece.
- sageikosa 11y agoEight movies of "so much like your father" just so he could deliver the "you have your mother's eyes" line, that one time; and undo all Harry's doubts and fears in that one moment.
- iscrewyou 11y ago##SPOILER!##!!
- eric_the_read 11y agoThe book was out 9 years ago, and the movie was ~4 years ago. I'm going to say this one's legit. If you haven't seen or read it by now, it's your own dang fault.
- sageikosa 11y ago...and that chick from the crying game was really a dude.... - Mayor Quimby
- TallGuyShort 11y agoThe parent post also really doesn't divulge anything about the plot.
- zyxley 11y agoRosebud was his sled.
- BocceBaal 11y agoand he kills Dumbledore!
- JoshTriplett 11y agoHonestly, I don't think that plot device worked at all in either the book or the movie, and no amount of good acting could make it convincing. Roald-Dahl-style crazy dystopias don't stretch out to longer works very well. (They're not that good in shorter works, either.)
- kercker 11y agoRIP
- kingmanaz 11y ago"By Grabthar's hammer ...what a savings." Amazing how such deadpanned misery can be so funny.
- nikbackm 11y agoFor some reason, I remember him best for his role in "Sense and Sensibility".
- Brakenshire 11y agoHe plays the good guy.
- jlewallen 11y agoAnother Rickman favorite, Epic Tea Time, Portraits in Dramatic Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7V_WtAVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7V_WtAVg
- metasean 11y agoThe first thing I remember seeing him in was Closet Land. It's been at least 20 years since I saw it, and thinking about his character still gives me chills. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101597/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_53 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101597/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_53
- pierrec 11y agoI once watched a streak of Alan Rickman movies, and can certainly recommend some of the less popular ones. Closet Land - HN should love this one: a dystopian science fiction film approaching censorship, surveillance, and torture. It's a single setting with only 2 actors, and sometimes feels like a very intense play. Truly Madly Deeply - An oddly appropriate film about accepting death, where he plays a tired ghost who come back to haunt his significant other, which I found bittersweet but overall heart-warming. Rasputin (1996) - I actually watched this during a Rasputin streak, and think that his performance is possibly the best Rasputin on film - he breathes a lot of humanity and realness into the character (compare with, say, the great but completely monstrous version with Christopher Lee). Other aspects of the film are uneven, but it's still very much worth it. I also remember being excited to learn that he was directing a movie recently (A Little Chaos). Haven't seen it, but the reviews are convincing - it's sad that he leaves us while he was still very much in a creative period.
- arethuza 11y agoWhat did you think of Tom Baker as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra?
- vidarh 11y agoJohn Sessions does a fantastic imitation of Alan Rickman and tells a great anecdote about him on QI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3OyvbJkj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3OyvbJkj4 (with Stephen Fry, David Mitchell, Emma Thompson and Alan Davies)
- ck2 11y agoThis age 69 thing is starting to freak me out.
- WOOKIE_pizza 11y agohttp://themanyfacesof.com/alan-rickman/ http://themanyfacesof.com/alan-rickman/ Really loved this actor. Sad to see him go. He brought us so much enjoyment over the years. Thank you, Alan!
- 55acdda48ab5 11y agoHis reading of "The Return of the Native" on audiobook is amazing. I just happened to finish it recently.
- sohkamyung 11y agoBesides the roles mentioned here, I will remember Alan Rickman for something else: as Master of Ceremonies, introducing the various instruments at the end of the first part of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells II" album [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_Bells_II#Master_of_Ceremonies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_Bells_II#Master_of_Cer...
- jacquesm 11y agoThank you for that.