Alan Rickman

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda.

The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'

I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.

Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.

I was a student in London in the '70s, so CBGB really wasn't on my radar at all. Obviously, I was aware of the emergence of the Police in England and as an art student, I was very aware of David Byrne, but I suppose my musical taste at that time certainly didn't stretch towards the Dead Boys or the Ramones.