Alan Rickman

“I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.”

“I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.”

“I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.”

“I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.”

“Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.”

“On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.”

“I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.”

“Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.”

“I think the thing about film is, as it gets proved by a lot of young filmmakers now, that the medium will just go on reinventing itself, and so you just hope to be a part of that and not a part of some kind of endless regurgitation or 'Here I am doing what you know I do' kind of thing.”

“When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.”

“I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.”

“Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.”

“The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.”