For most of his life, Alan Rickman kept diaries. After his untimely passing from pancreatic cancer in 2016, it was decided to edit and publish these journals to allow his fans to see a more intimate side of the beloved actor. With a foreword by his dear friend Emma Thompson and an afterword by his lifelong love and wife Rima Horton, Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman provides a glimpse into day to day life of an acting legend.
Madly, Deeply was created from Alan Rickman’s personal diaries. He wrote these as his own thought exercise and to occasionally look over and reminisce. They were never meant for others to read. Moreover, they were published posthumously so there was no way for him to edit or comment on anything he wrote, there were just his original words.
Rickman acknowledges at one point that he uses short-hand and codes to record thoughts and events that even he might not understand later. It’s important to keep this in mind before you sit down to read Madly, Deeply because it’s not a story. It is not the life of Alan Rickman in the way that any biographer or autobiographer would present it. It is just the private records of his day-to-day life.
There is no real sense of story to the entries. Sometimes things are mentioned that could be expanded into very interesting tales, but without any additional facts, the story isn’t there for us, only for him.While most entries are too anemic to provide much of an idea of life on set, there are a few comments that do get an idea across of just how boring being a movie actor is. Especially compared to the energy that comes across when he talks about the stage productions he’s involved in. Most of the movie work seems to be standing around and waiting.
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