Good morning America – interview
June 1991
Joan Lunden: Now 45 minutes after. These days when Hollywood needs a really bad guy, a villain on epic scale, chances are they’ll give Alan Rickman a call. Movie fans of course remember him as the arch-terrorist in the Bruce Willis action classic “Die Hard.” Well now, in a piece of picture-perfect casting, he’s the arch enemy of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves: the mean and nasty Sheriff of Nottingham. (Insert picture-perfect casting film clip here)
JL: Ha! Ha! And Alan Rickman joins us this morning. I can’t wait for this one. Of course me having kids, we can’t wait to go! What’s it, I mean, from all the, you know, first little reviews, they say, “Ya steal the film.” What’s it like being able to have the really great lines? You have some of the best lines in this film!
Alan Rickman: Well I, I probably had the best time doing the picture because, uh, everybody else is out in the freezing cold, and when you’re playing the Sheriff of Nottingham you get to stay inside in front of a lot of pretend logs blazing away, so I was quite warm.
JL: I-I’d read, I guess, because of trying to do a shorter shooting schedule and also, uh, the elements, just that on location, that it was a really grueling, really, like, I think Kevin fell into a cold river at one point?
AR: I think he spent about 3 days in a cold river–
JL: Oy!
AR: –but that’s the problem of filming in England, you see, you get four seasons in one day and, uh, you have very short amount of daylight and you can never predict what the weather’s going to be.
JL: And interesting that you said that because you had a short amount of time, that there wasn’t a lot of rehearsal allowed for this, and that in a way, that might play to your advantage. How so? Explain it to me.
AR: Well, you, I mean, ideally, rehearsal is a pretty good idea, but if you don’t have it, I guess you have to use the circumstances that you have and make the best of them, and I suppose there’s a kind of recklessness about the Sheriff of Nottingham and, uh, if you don’t get to rehearse it too much, you can be a bit braver about the whole thing. Kick the doors down.
JL: You go out there and you’re being reckless!
AR: Yeah.
JL: And it works in your favor.
AR: Well if the director lets you and he did.
JL: Allright. We were talking beforehand about how, I mean, you just got through playing a romantic lead, which I going to talk about in a minute, but here you are, villain, and it’s because you were in such a huge epic movie that everybody thinks of you as this villain, so, I mean, it’s great that you have a movie that’s such a success, but on the other hand, you said it’s like building a prison around you, because it’s of that whole typecasting, the way people think of you.
AR: Yeah… well it’s, I suppose, it’s a bit like saying, “Joan Lunden, blonde” you know? It’s true, but it’s not the whole picture.
JL: It’s not the whole picture, yeah. Well, you did play the lead, though in, is it Truly, Madly, Deeply, right? Did I get them in the right order?
AR: Truly, Madly, Deeply or whatever adverbs you-you want to call it. Yes ,it’s a love story, um …
JL: And you play the romantic lead.
AR: I do, but he has a problem ’cause he’s dead ,uh..
JL: Oh shucks. You’re the romantic lead and-and you’re a ghost. We’re seeing, now this is a little duet here, kind of an infectious, I’m told, slightly off key, let’s listen.
AR: OK. (Insert slightly off-key romantic duo clip here)
JL: Ok, you got, what’s it like changing your head from going from this little romantic movie to this 50 million dollar epic? Going back and forth?
AR: I’m the same person and I take the same, um, approach to the work, you know, you read the script and you hope that you’re looking at another actor who’s looking back at you and saying the lines. There’s a lot more money involved in one–
JL: –yeah–
AR: –but this one was a particular pleasure because Juliet Stevenson and I have worked a lot together in the theater and so it was a chance to work on film, uh, and we know each other very well, so you can’t get away with anything…
JL: Does that help? Does that help when you really know each other? I never know whether that’s good …
AR: Well, in playing a love story, it certainly helped because you can, there are no games to be played —
JL: Takes away some of the awkwardness–
AR: –and this story needed really honest playing so, um, …
JL: So they’re both out the same time, Truly, Madly, Deeply and of course this weekend, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves I know you’re off to London to do a play, thank you for stopping by.
AR: My pleasure, thank you.
