Alan Rickman Wrote About Getting Die Hard Questions, Even In The Midst Of Dealing With Cancer Treatment

 Celebrity can be a blessing, and a curse. An up and coming actor trying to establish themselves in the business likely would love to have a signature role something that turned them into a household name and led to higher profile gigs. But the downside to an iconic role like that is that no matter where you go or what you continue to do you might have to answer questions about that character for the rest of your life. Heres a quick example. While watching television recently my wife and I saw a commercial for Mayim Bialik hosting the upcoming round of Celebrity Jeopardy. My wife referred to Bialik as Blossom. Always will. And for the late, great Alan Rickman that signature role was Hans Gruber  the legendary villain of the original Die Hard. 

Alan Rickman kept a running diary of his work and play jotting down notes that chart the progression of his professional acting career. A number of the notations shared recently by The Guardian cover Rickmans commitment to and work on the Harry Potter franchise where he memorably played Professor Severus Snape  and according to the diaries almost chose to quit the series. But as you scan through the entries you eventually catch up with Rickmans treatments for an aggressive form of prostate cancer  which eventually led to him having his prostate removed. This became known after the actor died in 2016 and it was during those treatments that Rickman apparently had to field a few Die Hard questions from his doctors. As Rickman noted:

The doctors come round and after dealing with catheters and drainage finally nervously get to the point How did you do the fall at the end of Die Hard?

Perhaps it was an effort to distract Alan Rickman from his cancer treatments. Or perhaps the doctors sincerely wanted to know how Rickman, Bruce Willis and director John McTiernan pulled off the magic trick that concludes one of the best action movies ever committed to film. Either way its sweet that Rickman was still telling Die Hard stories in 2005 nearly 20 years after it changed the landscape of action blockbusters and made Rickman a household name.