Can't remember. I think he kind of crept up on me slowly.
Alan moments
One of my earlier Alan memories involves my younger brother and a habit he developed one summer holiday of watching violent videos over and over again, ad nauseum. One week it was Die Hard. He was nine. Alan Rickman's delightfully evil German terrorist was perhaps the only thing that stopped me from going stark staring mad that holiday. After watching the film for about the seventeenth time, I realised I was rooting for Alan and not Bruce Willis. A rite of passage, if ever there was one.
I had a very similar experience with Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves. What on earth was wrong with Maid Marian in that film? What would make someone choose Kevin Costner and his 'Notting-ham' twang when they could have Alan and his amazing way with a spoon?
There have been many more Alan moments, but I've got a hangover and I can't be bothered to tell you about them all. So I'll pick two and then shut up.
1. Truly, Madly, Deeply. I think this is a lovely, lovely film and I don't care what anyone says. Unless they say nice things, of course. Juliet Stevenson is great in this too, as the woman who misses her dead lover so much he comes back. But it doesn't work out because, well, he's dead, and she's not. Sigh... if you haven't seen this film, please do yourself a favour and run, run like the wind down to the video shop..
2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. There were many, many things I didn't like about this film, and quite a few of them had to do with Hermione. Sorry, that's terrible, isn't it, picking on a little kid like that. I'm mean and nasty. Anyway I won't dwell on that. Or the over-reliance on CGI. Or Hermione... I won't, because we are here to discuss Alan Rickman. And how wonderful was Snape? Pretty damn wonderful, I'd say. Wonderful enough to have his own spin-off TV show, in fact. Called Snape! Where Snape is the star, and goes around glaring at people in a sinister manner, and having dark secrets. And Hermione isn't in it.