We live in a world where we seem increasingly in need of ways to unify ourselves, ways to build bridges and feel as one. It strikes me that very few things have achieved these aims as successfully as the brilliant world of Harry Potter.
There was never a day, however, that Alan Rickman wasn’t to be seen in full, flowing Snape robes, holding his tray and queuing up in the canteen for his lunch like everyone else. I was rather intimidated by Alan from day one. It took three or four years for me to manage more than a slightly terrified and squeaky “Hi Alan!” whenever I saw him. But seeing him wait patiently, in full Snape mode, for his sausage sandwich took the edge off just a little.
I am not alone in having these feelings. Just as we all experience physical ill-health at some stage in our lives, so we all experience mental ill-health too. There’s no shame in that. It’s not a sign of weakness.
I’ve always had a secret love for Emma, though not perhaps in the way that people might want to hear. That isn’t to say there’s never been a spark between us. There most definitely has, only at different times.
If you sometimes feel like that, you are not alone, and I urge you to talk about it to someone. It’s easy to bask in the sun, not so easy to enjoy the rain. But one can’t exist without the other. The weather always changes. Feelings of sadness and happiness deserve equal mental screen time.
It was Alan Rickman and I was terrified, not because of the menace he exuded as Severus Snape, but because I loved the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was obsessed with Alan’s performance as the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham. To be in the same room as the Sheriff himself was enough to penetrate even my veneer of schoolboy cockiness.
Rather than see therapy as the emergency consequence of excess or illness, we should start to see if for what it can be: an essential opportunity to take time out from the voices in your head, the pressures of the world and the expectations we place on ourselves... if it is nothing more than time devoted to looking after yourself, how can that not be time well spent?
Feelings of sadness and happiness deserve equal mental screen time.
I also know now that it’s a classic British male trait – that reluctance to express emotion and say what you really think.
I don’t think I was ever in love with Emma, but I loved and admired her as a person in a way that I could never explain to anybody else.
I was famous already! Brilliant! Except of course, I wasn’t famous. I was entirely unknown. Turns out that with my angelic little face, my beanie and my puffa jacket they thought I was Macaulay Culkin in full Home Alone garb, or maybe his little brother. Sorry, Macaulay, for stealing your fans, even if it was just for one day.
Harry is the product of a family who loves him so much, they are prepared to die for him. Draco is the product of a family who bully and abuse him. But when they have the freedom to make their own choices, they reach a similar destination.
At every moment up until then, he’d have dobbed Harry in. Finally, though, he understands what Dumbledore told Harry early in the story: that it’s our choices, not our abilities, that show us what we truly are.
I had no idea, when I was first asked by my agents to audition for a film called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, that it would be any different in terms of scale to the jobs I’d done previously. In my mind it was another Borrowers: a relatively high-budget film with lots of children and, if I played my cards right, a part for me. But if I didn’t get a part? That was okay too. It wasn’t the be-all and end-all. There was a good chance something else would come along.
If rehab is nothing more than time devoted to looking after yourself, how can that not be time well spent?
I couldn’t get out of bed this morning because everything felt too much.” “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.” “I know I’m loved, so why do I feel so lonely?” Rather than see therapy as the emergency consequence of excess or illness, we should start to see it for what it can be: an essential opportunity to take time out from the voices in your head, the pressures of the world and the expectations we place on ourselves.
I used to go to a kids’ club at Leatherhead Leisure Centre called Crazy Tots and I couldn’t wait to share my adventures with my friends there. I didn’t try to tell them about the Golden Gate Bridge or Caesars Palace or Times Square. I wanted to tell them about the important stuff: the room service, the Cartoon Network and, yes, the red puffa jacket. Pretty quickly, however, a hard truth presented itself. Literally. Nobody. Cared.
In short, three older guys to keep me firmly in my place – which I guess is no bad thing for a kid who’s about to embark on a wizarding career.
He told me he was a rich man, not because he had wealth but because he had his family around him. He knew no amount of money, fame or praise would ever make him content.
Every school child needs a Dumbledore in their life.
Then we started hanging out and I found somebody else who quacked. And that’s when I thought: To hell with them, I really am a duck!