rickman was someone I often thought of when I felt like I was getting nowhere with my life because I remembered he didn’t get his acting break until he was 41 and it made me think it’s ok if you not successful from the age of 18 you can take your time
I’ve just been reading about Alan Rickman’s life, and – wow – it was even more extraordinary.
He first went to art school, and was a successful graphic designer before his passion for theatre won out. He was awarded a scholarship to train at RADA at the late age of 26 – really unusual. As @nondeducible says, he got his Hollywood break at 41 – but as today’s Guardian says, ‘his sensational breakthrough came in 1986’ – on stage – ‘as [the original] Valmont, the mordant seducer in Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses’. [x] That production was a huge sensation at the time. It went on to be filmed – but, sadly, with John Malkovich, not Alan, as Valmont.
The other aspect of Alan Rickman’s life I hope young people will take inspiration from is that he achieved all this from a very ordinary, and not easy, background.
He grew up on a council estate in West London and his Dad died before he was 10. He was a scholarship boy at a selective independent school (he was there because he was smart; other kids’ families would have been richer) – a stark contrast with most of today’s best-loved young British actors, who (with a few exceptions, e.g. Ben Whishaw) are almost all from wealthy backgrounds and public-school educated. After RADA, he even supported himself financially by working as a theatre dresser for bigger names (Sir Ralph Richardson, Nigel Hawthorne).
With the loss of Alan Rickman, we have lost one of a dying generation of British actors who achieved their success from ordinary beginnings, entirely through their own hard work, talent and persistence.
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