The late, great Alan Rickman, the actor who captured the attention of audiences both on the big screen and on stage, left us with an extensive film catalog of his work. From the Harry Potter series to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to his turn as the goatee wearing terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard, remembering Rickman can be as easy as turning on your television (or booting up Netflix on your laptop).
But it seems the late actor wanted to leave more for the world than his acting work. Henry Holt publishers has just announced that it will be releasing Rickman's collected and curated diary entries in a work titled Madly Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman this October.
Rickman began writing his diaries in the early 1990s, when his film career was beginning to flourish. He wrote his diaries expressly for the purpose of future publication. By the time of his death in 2016, his journals totaled 27 volumes. However, Madly Deeply will consist of a single volume, with his expansive work compressed into a more concise portrait. The diaries portray Rickman as an actor, activist, traveler, and beloved friend. The diaries give a new insight into Rickman's unfortunately abbreviated life. The new book will give us a new appreciation for the late actor.
Rickman joins a long list of famous diarists, from the erotic-minded Anaïs Nin to John Adams, and even authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, and the poet Sylvia Plath, Rickman is entering a genre of kaleidoscopic intensity, that flashes the intensity of a whole life through the lens of the banal, often yielding rich and profound results. Madly Deeply will follow the latter and most successful chapters of Rickman's life, after his hugely successful transition to film in the Christmas-action movie Die Hard, in which the deliciously evil Hans Gruber. But the book will not confine itself to his professional work rather, it will give new insight into his own interior life.
Rickman was known for quiet but intense performances, often letting his deep and steady voice carry both emotional weight and ironic humor. Rickman came to the acting profession rather late, comparatively speaking, having worked at his own graphic design firm after he completed university. Rickman passed away on January 14, 2016 following a private battle with pancreatic cancer. Madly Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman will be released to bookstores this October.