Daniel Radcliffe says he was “terrified” of Alan Rickman while making the first few Harry Potter movies, believing that the late actor hated him.
“I was so intimidated by Alan Rickman,” Radcliffe said on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast released Thursday. “How could you not be by that voice? Even just hearing that voice, you forget quite how low that voice was until it echoes through you.”
Radcliffe added that he was “so intimidated” by Rickman—who played Professor Severus Snape in the Potter franchise—“for the first three movies.” “I was just terrified of him and I was like: ‘This guy hates me,’” Radcliffe added.
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He was reacting to a clip of an old interview in which Rickman spoke of his “huge pride” at seeing Radcliffe’s post-Potter career success with a role in a Broadway show. “How dare he be dancing as well as the New York dancers?” Rickman jokingly asked in the footage. “Because he worked at it.”
It was Rickman’s recognition of that work ethic that changed his relationship with him, Radcliffe explained. “Somewhere along the line, I think he saw that I really wanted to do this,” he said. “I really wanted to work at it.”
Rickman, who died at 69 in 2016, once cut short a vacation in Canada “to come and see me in Equus,” Radcliffe said, referring to the West End and Broadway play in which he starred in the late aughts.
“He saw every piece of stage work I ever did while he was alive,” Radcliffe added, saying Rickman would take him out after the shows to talk about them.
