Harry Potter: “not really an actor”, what Alan Rickman really thought of Daniel Radcliffe

British actor Alan Rickman’s family released his memoir in 2022, titled Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman. A large portion of these writings is devoted to the shooting of the Harry Potter films, in which he played the character of Severus Snape, a wizard who was not very talkative and rather aggressive towards the hero.

This unsympathetic role, however, was deeper than that during the saga, which lasted eight feature films. During the first films of the saga, Rickman was not very happy, and we find in his diary his thoughts of the moment, and he was not tender with the young actors, in particular Daniel Radcliffe, the interpreter of Harry:

“I still think he’s not really an actor, but he will definitely produce/direct”. He also describes Radcliffe as “sensitive, intelligent and well-spoken”. On the other hand, Emma Watson takes it for her rank, since Rickman writes that her diction is “next to the mark”.

Warner Bros.

If Radcliffe still turns as an actor, Rickman was not mistaken about the fact that the young man would become a financier, because he is now an executive producer on his series Miracle Workers and on the documentary Circus Kid, devoted to family dynamics in the world of the circus.

On the set of Prisoner of Azkaban, he adds: “these children need to be directed, they don’t know their text”.

Rickman has never been kind to the saga that helped endear him to a new audience, who didn’t necessarily know him as a Shakespearean actor or as the villain of Crystal Trap. He writes of a post-preview party for The Half-Blood Prince:

The desire to eat and drink is as much there as the need to bang the heads of the three Davids against the nearest wall. I understand the character development and the amazing (and impressive) special effects, but where’s the story????.

The expression “the three Davids” brings together David Heyman and David Barron, the producers of Harry Potter, and David Yates, the director of the films from The Order of the Phoenix to Deathly Hallows – Part 2. Even today, Yates is the “Potter director” of the Warner studio, since he signed the three opuses of Fantastic Beasts, which are part of the saga.

Warner Bros.

Despite these not kind words towards a saga he almost left on several occasions, including the first time after Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Alan Rickman finally acknowledged that it was the narrative arc of his character Severus Snape that kept him attached to the project:

“It was a real rite of passage, a little bit of information Jo Rowling gave me seven years ago – Snape loves Lily – that gave me the cliff to cling to.”