The prolific actor made it look easy to be bad.
Alan Rickman was a great actor a statement which is undeniably true. He excelled in the characters he played and more often than not he elevated the material simply by appearing in the film. And if that character was a villain as was often the case Rickman owned it. Hans Gruber. The Sheriff of Nottingham. Judge Turpin. Severus Snape. All these villains were made iconic by the prolific actor. But what is it about his performances that made him so good at being so bad?
Generally speaking, theres an air of arrogance about Rickman in his villainous roles, a sense that he has above all the other characters in the film. This is a very obvious facet he could turn on and off as Rickman was often noted for his wonderful offscreen presence. Its easy to see in Die Hard where his Hans Gruber downplays John McClane Bruce Willis as nothing more than an irritant a deadly irritant but one nonetheless unable to halt his plan which includes his smug knowledge of FBI procedure that falls right into it. And he holds that arrogance right to the end pulling out a gun on McClane in a final, bitter refusal to admit defeat.
Rickman would satirize that arrogance to a degree in Galaxy Quest. Although his Sir Alexander Dane was not a villain in that film his actions his line delivery and his resignation made it clear just how much he believed that he should be remembered and acknowledged for far more than having played the alien Dr. Lazarus in a juvenile silly piece of sci fi nonsense doomed to relive the role at fan conventions for time eternal somewhat unrelated its also a brilliant send up of Leonard Nimoys love/hate relationship with his role as Dr. Spock.
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