Actor Alan Rickman, best known for his role as Harry Potter‘s Severus Snape and Die Hard‘s Hans Gruber, has died of cancer at the age of 69.
Though Rickman’s illustrious career was comprised of incredible performances as villains in both movies and plays, he was a beloved member of the film and theater community. James Phelps, who played Fred Weasley–a character who didn’t discover Snape’s graciousness in the Harry Potter film series until his tragic death–said this morning that Rickman was “one of the nicest actors I’ve ever met.”
Rickman, a native of London, was nominated for prestigious awards several times by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his roles in Truly Madly Deeply and Sense and Sensibility. Across the water, he would take home a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Film for playing Rasputin in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny.
