Alone among naked people
In addition to the interview with Alan Rickman that was published in the Express two weeks ago, there's another interview in this weekend's edition of the Hamburger Abendblatt. I assume there was one press conference in Munich or Berlin, which several jornalists attended, but this journalist managed to write a more sensible interview.

Most people probably know Alan Rickman as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films or as enamoured Lord (!) in Sense and Sensibility. But the 60-year-old, who returns to his roots at the theatre time and again, is considered to be one of the most charismatic actors, who quite regularly upstage the main actors. In the film Perfume the Briton now plays the worthy antagonist of the murderer Grenouille. A conversation about scents, obsessions and a stroll among naked people.

After having done some big Hollywood productions you now stood in front of the camera for a German film. How did you experience the shooting?

An incredibly beautiful time. It’s not often that you absolutely want to make a film because of the director. I knew Tom Tykwer’s Run, Lola, Run and The Princess and the Warrior, which I particularly liked. And then you are at the film set and see how everything falls into place.

The main character Grenouille has a better sense of smell than everyone else. If you could choose such a gift, which would it be?

To know how to play the piano. My mother knew how to play, but she was a single mother, and there were too many other things she had to care about. There was no time and certainly also no money.

Which scent do you like the most?

Take a little baby, lave it, dry it and then smell it. There’s nothing chemical about it.

Do you use perfume?

No, I don’t like it on myself. I buy perfume for my girlfriend, but only the one or two fragrances she uses. You can’t choose a fragrance for a woman, because the scent changes when it is applied on the skin.

How much of yourself becomes a part of the roles you play?

Every time you use a part of what is at your disposal. I read the script. I say, “How do we do this? Let’s try this.” I make decisions, but I’m not this person.

Would you say that the success of the Harry Potter films and the role of Professor Snape have changed your life?

My life changes with every little piece of work. It probably changed the most when I made a film in the first place, namely Die Hard in 1988. Suddenly a film career you hadn’t expected at all. I entered the cinema as a normal member of the audience, left it again and had to fight the masses to get to my car.

Do you like changes?

It’s part of the job. Our salaries depend on it. It’s fantastic when you have the chance to talk about your work by making films or writing books or plays in order to make people understand who you are. Unfortunately, this goes along with a prominence that undoes this understanding. It’s cheap, obtrusive and rather destroys people instead of feeling like a commendation. We prefer to explain ourselves to the public and the world by our work and not by having people look whose behind is bigger or who wears which bikini.

In the film, when you walk around the market place among the naked people – what was it like?

Extraordinary. Something like this hasn’t been seen in a film before. Tykwer engaged a dance company, and then music by Philip Glass was played, and someone softly spoke into a microphone to encourage the extras. Who would have thought that something like this would happen in my life? That I would stride among 2,000 (!) naked people with a sword in my hand?

You enjoy stories about obsessed people. Why?

Perhaps because I did Snowcake before, in which Sigourney Weaver plays an autistic woman and exhibits an obsessed behaviour. Then I played a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, who also narrow-mindedly cuts his own path. This is the third film in a row about people who determinedly follow their own rules of life.