Alan Rickman felt that Harry Potter’s Children’s ‘Release’ had flourished before his death

Alan Rickman He died on January 14, 2016, but just seven months before his death, he opened up about seeing his young Harry Potter costars thrive as adults.

“I think it’s a relief as much as anything else,” Rickman said of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson a Rupert Grint‘ success in an episode from June 2015 of Josh Horowitz‘s “Happy Sad Confused” Podcast.. “You watch that situation and as much as I was doing it for just seven weeks, they were doing it for 52 weeks. This was their life from 12 to 22. And you’d watch it from the sidelines at times and throw in the odd rescue because there’s so little time for that.”

Rickman, who died of pancreatic cancer aged 69, played Severus Snape in every eight Harry Potter films between 2001 and 2011, and kept in touch with Radcliffe after filming ended.

“Only in the last few years, for example, have I managed to sit down in a cafe in New York with Daniel,” Rickman continued in the interview. “At one point, he was down the road in one theater and I was up the road in another. Huge pride to go see him in the musical (How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying). How dare he dance as well as New York dancers? Because he’s working on it.”

Related: ‘Harry Potter’ Stars Reunite Over the Years: Pictures

Once a Hogwarts student, always a Hogwarts student — and the frequent Harry Potter cast reunions prove it. In 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone hit theaters, introducing the world to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who played the three main characters from JK Rowling’s novels: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione (…)

It wasn’t until recently that Radcliffe heard Rickman’s words. Horowitz played the clip at a “Happy Sad Confused” recording in April 2024 with Radcliffe backing up Glad We Roll On (for which Radcliffe he won his first Tony award).

“I was so scared by Alan Rickman. How can you not be with that voice?” Radcliffe, now 35, said after watching the clip of his late costar. “Even hearing that voice you forget how low he was until his be reverberating through you. I was so intimidated by him for the first three movies. I was intimidated by him and I was like, ‘This guy hates me.’ Somewhere along the line, he saw that I really wanted to do this and worked on it.”

He added that Rickman was particularly supportive of his theater career on Broadway and London’s West End. “He cut short a holiday in Canada to come and see me Equus,” Radcliffe said. “He saw every piece of stage work I did when he was alive. He would take me out afterwards and we would talk about it. He was one of the first people to say, like, ‘You should look at training Alexander’s voice and technique and all these things.’ He was like, ‘You’re probably not going to get this otherwise, so you should look into all this stuff.’ I am so lucky. It’s really lovely to hear him say that. Thanks for showing me that.”

While Rickman called Radcliffe an “amazing” performer in a 2015 podcast, that wasn’t always his view. In his personal journals, published in 2022’s Mad, Deep: The Alan Rickman Diarieshe remembered seeing Radcliffe become more professional during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“He’s so focused now. Serious and focused – but with a sense of fun,” Rickman’s May 2003 entry reads about the third film. “I still don’t think he’s actually an actor but he will no doubt direct/produce. And he has such quiet, dignified support from his parents. Nothing is pushed.”

Obviously, that changed – Radcliffe has said many times that he didn’t decide he wanted to be an actor after allA potter until the fifth film – and the younger actor didn’t mind hearing the bad along with the good. He even appreciated Rickman’s suggestion.

“I would definitely love to (try) directing,” Radcliffe said forward Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in November 2022. “Production seems like all the hard parts of the industry without any of the fun, so I’m not really interested in doing that.”

Radcliffe added, “All the things Alan wrote were very lovely and nostalgic reading. Like, from his comments about us, being like, ‘These kids need to learn their lines. It’s kind of a nightmare at the moment.’ All that stuff through we met when I was over here (in NYC) when I was doing a play. It was very, very sweet to read all that. “

Rickman is survived by his wife Rima Horton.