By Michael H. Price – Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Is this an insult, or what?” the Welsh-Irish actor Alan Rickman asked pointedly during a visit heralding the opening of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. “I think I’ve just been insulted.”
Geez. And all I said to the guy was that if his Sheriff of Nottingham isn’t the best acting to be found in Robin Hood, then certainly it must be the most acting to be found in Robin Hood.
“Do you mean, like, ‘over the top’ or something?” asked Rickman.
“No, I swore off using that expression after Sylvester Stallone called that awful movie of his Over the Top,” I answered. “And besides, ‘over the top’ suggests an uncontrolled job, or maybe amateurish. Your villain, here, is patently a controlled job of acting. I’m just not certain whether it makes the film, or breaks it—a very difficult call.”
“Well, then, at least we’ve made an interesting motion picture,” Rickman said. “I hope you can see it again before you decide what to put down for publication.”
“I think I could stand another look.”
“No, really: Am I being insulted here?”
Rickman is not actually that thin-skinned—and he seems never less than gentlemanly—but he is at the tense juncture where a screen player who has done one thing consistently well over a reasonably long stretch proves to be at risk of terminal typecasting.
Rickman’s one-thing-well accomplishment is villainy. From 1988’s Die Hard through such more recent assignments as Quigley Down Under, Closet Land and Robin Hood, Rickman has excelled sufficiently at bad-guy business to invite regard as an artistic descendant of Vincent Price.
“Yes,” Rickman said, “and Vincent Price also did comedy tremendously well, and is a tremendously versatile actor. And we all know where his gift for villainy landed him: typed for life. But I do appreciate the likening to him.”
“What I wish more people knew,” he added, “is that there’s a nice little ghostly love story out there in a few theaters now called Truly, Madly, Deeply—where I play a tender, loving sort of chap who returns from the dead—and that I’m looking to defy as many expectations as I can, in case the people who liked my turn in Die Hard should take that character as the only thing I’m capable of doing.”
“That’s what I’m doing so much of the broad comedy-villainy for in Robin Hood, you know. (Director) Kevin (Reynolds) and I—well, we worked it out where I could get away with mugging the camera, and sticking my nose out into the audience, and throwing away some asides and one-liners.”
“Now, what you were saying earlier, that may be because of expectations you’ve brought from having liked the Die Hard bad man. I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don’t like what’s being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.”
“Robin‘s Sheriff of Nottingham is a troublemaker with a murderous streak, all right—but goodness, this is a costume melodrama, not Shakespeare. I believe this particular villain needs to be a little laughable, lest we players mislead the audience into taking things too seriously.”
“And as to what you were saying about a make-or-break performance: I might very well ‘break’ the picture by playing it so—well, so grand-manner,” Rickman said.
“But it’s Morgan Freeman who makes the thing work, I believe, and (title player) Kevin (Costner) is generous enough to yield to Morgan at just about every turn.”
