The handwritten journals of late actor Alan Rickman, best known for the role of Severus Snape in the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, will be published as a book in 2022.
According to a report by Variety, the ‘Die Hard’ actor’s journals have a flashback of everything from his career. The actor has also shared thoughts on acting to insights on friendships and politics in his diary. The star has also written his views on the plays he used to attend and behind-the-scenes tales from the set of ‘Harry Potter’, which he was a part of for a decade between 2001 and 2011.
The handwritten diary has a total of 27 volumes which provide a synopsis of more than 25 years of Rickman’s life and career. All of them will be edited down into a single book.
From the time the British actor started writing, the only motive was to publish them in future.
The star continued noting down the tales of his career while appearing in the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, ‘Love, Actually’, ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ ‘Galaxy Quest’ and more.
The time when Rickman started this personal project, his career had set out with roles that included Valmont in ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ at the Royal Shakespeare Company and on-screen as Hans Gruber in 1988’s ‘Die Hard.’
Rickman continued writing until his death in 2016 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 69.
According to Variety, publisher Canongate has acquired the rights to the book, reportedly titled ‘The Diaries of Alan Rickman’. The same will be edited by Alan Taylor, editor of the Scottish Review of Books, who also put together ‘The Country Diaries’, a collection of a pastoral journalist from Beatrix Potter, Dorothy Wordsworth, John Fowles and more.
Rickman’s widow Rima Horton said in an interview, “I’m delighted that Canongate will be publishing Alan’s diaries and couldn’t have wished for a finer appointment of an editor than Alan Taylor,”
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“The diaries reveal not just Alan Rickman the actor but the real Alan — his sense of humour, his sharp observation, his craftsmanship and his devotion to the arts.”
As reported by Variety, Taylor told the Guardian, “Rickman’s diaries were ‘anecdotal, indiscreet, witty, gossipy and utterly candid. They make compulsive reading and offer a peerless insight into the daily life of a remarkable actor, who was as beloved in the US as he surely was in the UK.”