Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman

I hate it when my head, heart and aspirations are filled to the brim only with career. The rest of me hangs around like a jacket on the back of a doorknob.

Jurassic Park—what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs.

I am surrounded by people nervous of their own opinions.

Completely knackered. All that politeness.

I wish these lounges weren’t so devoted to the bored & boring. Perhaps there could be a door marked Eccentrics and Weirdos Only.

Savoy Grill with Emma[Thompson]. A very easy, enjoyable meal with an easy enjoyable person. She says 'fuck' a lot. Much laughter.

The hotel is just Budapest, America. Imported phones, lamps, cupboards etc. God forbid Americans should feel they are somewhere ELSE.

Is this control, depression or exhaustion?

I must try not to be sucked into other people’s problems when all it does is drain my energy.

It seems sometimes to be in the stars that some days are peaceful and some are manic.

Alan. You never knew if you were going to be kissed or unsettled. But you couldn’t wait to see what would come next.

7:15 Montpelier - excellent dinner. Would have been perfect if only I'd had a handgun for the other guests: 'Of course communism was always bound to fail.

The trouble with death is that there is no next. There is only what was and for that I am profoundly and heartbrokenly grateful.

Awake trying to locate one worthwhile, nameable emotion that deserves this sleeplessness

Good food but on my top ten hate list would be over-attentive waiters – I like watching my wine glass get emptier. I am close to slapping the arm of the next waiter who refills my glass after every sip.

Jurassic Park - what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs.

Favoured holiday destinations were the Caribbean and South Africa.

That’s it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

Alan was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.

Re-reading some pages of this diary is like looking at a graph of an exhausted mind.

Actors are great people, and special and funny & self-denigrating, so fuck you anyone who disagrees.

I want something to come at me not to be always looking, probing, hoping, reaching.

He was generous and challenging. Dangerous and comical. Sexy and androgynous. Virile and peculiar. Temperamental and languid. Fastidious and casual.

A real feeling of why bother? Everywhere is tension from friends to politics. What’s going on? Maybe the wind will turn, but at the moment there is a gnawing feeling that this life offers only fleeting moments when it all comes together because the rest of it requires a fitter body and a more grown-up mind.

We stopped in Montreal for an hour then on to Pittsburgh and the William Penn Hotel. The burst through that tunnel still as thrilling.

Apart from that his mind as quixotic and lightning sharp as always.

The trouble with death is that there is no next.

Sometimes the sensation of being a personal launderette service—friendship must not become a space for indulgence. Listening to casting problems, rehearsal problems, photograph problems. There is a point at which they walk away stronger and you are exhausted. This cannot be right …

We are our own worst enemies when we take ourselves that seriously. But then the world wants to film it. Apes picking fleas from each other.

Talking with journalists always leaves me feeling uneasy and a little like those tribes who don’t like having photos taken because they’re giving away their souls. But today there is a strong sense of colliding with one’s destiny.