Alan Rickman’s Tip For Award Ceremonies

Just a little story I came across the other day. I just thought it was a lovely piece about Alan Rickman, and thought it worth passing on in case any of you missed it.

Author Sebastian Barry was being interviewed on Radio Five Live/Five Live/Radio 5/Five on Tuesday, having won the Costa Book Of The Year award for the second year in succession. Whilst he was chatting, the subject of the late, great Alan Rickman came up, and Barry shared a lovely anecdote about the much-missed actor and filmmaker.

Rickman worked with Alison Deegan, Barry’s wife, on the screenplay for his final film as director, A Little Chaos. It was a project that the pair worked on for 17 years, and in that time, Barry and Rickman became firm friends too. During that time, Rickman passed on his advice for how to handle the moment of an awards ceremony when your category came up.

“Alan won his share and lost his share,” Barry recalled, and Rickman’s method was “to start to clap low down, about a foot off the ground, between your knees, and then as the announcement is made, slowly raise your hands in the clapping mechanism, so you won’t be revealed to be distraught or anything when the cameras are on you!”

Which also gives us an excuse – as if we needed one – to post our favourite Alan Rickman acceptance speech, as he took home a richly-deserved BAFTA for his performance in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. How about this for an opening line to an acceptance speech…

Afternoon Edition