British actor Alan Rickman, or Professor Snape as he’s known to millions of Harry Potter fans, returns to screens starring alongside Kate Winslet in ‘A Little Chaos’.
Alan Rickman returns to directing after 20 years
But he’s not just playing Louis XIV in this film about the construction of the gardens of Versailles, he’s also directing the film as well – something he won’t do again.
Director and Actor, Alan Rickman, says “Yeah, because it’s an impossible thing to do. You can’t be in the moment with a fellow actor and watch what you’re doing. I honestly don’t know how other actors do it.”
This is his second time directing after making his debut with ‘The Winter Guest’ nearly 20 years ago.
Alan Rickman says, “It’s just a specific response to a piece of work that you get offered. If it’s something you want to act in, the compulsion comes from ‘I want to say that line’. With this, and it’s a lot to do with the fact that I have an arts school background and I ran a design group and I’ve directed in the theatre a lot in the intervening years. Images jump around you want to be the person that makes those images real.”
However, his dream production wouldn’t be the same without his dream actress, Kate Winslet, with which he starred in ‘Sense and Sensibility’.
“She’s totally uncomplaining about whatever horrible conditions she’s going to have to work in. In this film, we’re spraying her with water, throwing her into a torrent at one o’clock in the morning. I have a photograph that I took on my phone of her where we’d called ‘yeah ok, we’ve got it’. She’s up to here in water, she’s got towels wrapped around her head, she’s holding a hot water bottle but her thumbs are both up and smiling.”
‘A Little Chaos’ is out in UK cinemas on April 17.
Ventuno