» Alan Rickman interview
Craig Driver talks to Alan Rickman about his role in Tim Burton’s musical adaptation of Sweeney Todd
How did you feel about taking on a role that required such a large amount of singing?
Well, it was, I suppose at this point in one’s life, you actually welcome the risk and the challenge as much as anything else. I’m not looking for safe harbours anywhere. I wasn’t really nervous, because I thought, ‘Well, if I’m terrible, they’ll just fire me’. They’re not gonna waste time and money on that. I don’t even know how to explain some of the sensations. I mean, I know it’s a great piece of work, wherever you see it, on film or in the theatre. This is like: everybody holds it as their own if they’ve seen Sweeney Todd in the theatre. And even if you just read the lyrics, it’s great work. So, you know you’re gonna do something that’s gonna sustain you all the time, because the music’s so complex and the lyrics are so complex, and the world is so dark. So add that to the fact that they’re great parts for Johnny Depp and I to be working very much with Tim Burton on and we’ve got one of the great songs of musical theatre. I just thought, well, it’s a no-brainer, really.
What was your feeling about the film being so predominantly and obviously a musical?
Well, I think one of the miracles of the film is you kind of forget that it’s a musical, because the speaking and the singing melt into each other. It’s not like, ‘And here’s a big number’. And also, when I had my one fairly nerve-wracking moment with Sondheim, that is challenging. When you’re alone in a room with a piano, a pianist, and then Stephen Sondheim walks to you and says, ‘Okay, let’s hear it’.
How was that experience, working with the man who wrote the songs and lyrics?
He was fine. And he just said, ‘Yeah, that first bit – you see here is a man infatuated with love – just more conversational’. So, that was the greatest note you could be given, and it really helped. Because it meant, you know, you don’t have to, there’s not such a pressure to sing, and that it’s all got to be like somebody thinking and speaking.
Was there anything that surprised you about working with Burton?
That he’s actually quite vulnerable at times. If you watch him, he knows what he wants but it’s an alive situation. You know, it’s not like a solid rock of certainty. It’s like an electric sort of experience, that’s what I mean by vulnerable. He’s human inside it all and nervous too, just like the rest of us.
What was it that made you decide on acting as a career?
Oh, you just answer a need. I think we all live in our head too much. And there’s the poor old neck-down bit that’s screaming for attention a lot of the time and you have to go ‘What? Oh, you want to do that? Okay.’Then you put the two together. And when your head and your body are working together, then whether you’re a chef or an actor or a cab driver, you’re doing the job you should do.
What’s next in line then for Alan Rickman?
Well, more Potter to start with and then I think I’m gonna be working with Lasse Hallstrom in the summer, which makes it a double bonus for me what with Tim and Johnny too.
Sweeney Todd (18) in cinemas now
