Well, at the beginning Alan Rickman’s character is sneering in Dogma, but later on he gets less so. The character is someone stuck in a job he dislikes but must do. Later on you find out that he’s a decent sort. The same thing is true in Galaxy Quest. His character is a one-time stage actor who now can’t do anything except play the character he did in a twenty-year-old TV show in things like shopping center openings. Not surprisingly, he sneers some at first.
That is the one that jumped right to mind when I saw the thread title. They should have named it Ghost - the non-suck version. Alan Rickman playing a sweet, vulnerable guy. The January Man he plays another character utterly different from anything he’s ever done. In Love, Actually he plays a flawed man, but he’s not bad and definitely doesn’t sneer even when being tortured by Rowan Atkinson.
I’d like to see him play a hero. He could have done Liam Neeson’s role in Taken easily enough.
Well, I certainly haven’t read the word “sneer” so many times in a thread before.
This thread made me think of J. K. Simmons. He’s typecasted, just like, Rickman, only he gets to play characters that are angry and/or intimidating. I’m sure he has more range, especially since his angry and intimidating characters are fairly nuanced in relation to one another (his angry character in Spiderman had a totally different vibe from the angry character Oz, for example). But he has his thing going and he goes it well.
See Juno. He plays a nice, decent loving father.
Mac MacGuff: [a very pregnant Juno enters the room] Hey there, big puffy version of Junebug!
Oh, gee, how could I forget about that one… 
Koxinga, if that’s your idea of a “nice, sane guy” I’m not asking what do you think about Jack the Ripper.
His court-appointed psychiatrist role on Law & Order. Emil Skoda, could be very much the opposite of angry or intimidating. The one time when he does pull out “intimidating” in that role (to prove that a defendant had a flat affect and therefore a serious mental disorder) was startling and wholly out of character for the part. And brilliantly done, as well. I think he’s very underrated.
Love that. Thanks.
And Rickman? I haven’t seen him in many things, but (as mentioned earlier) he switched gears in Die Hard in fine fashion during his first encounter with Willis. With an American accent, no less.
Even when he’s doing his standard squint and long pause thing, he varies it in lovely fashion. It’s sort of like Michael Richards doing the Kramer schtick week after week, but always finding something a little surprising, but appropriate, for the new episode.
You musta missed that ten-page thread about The Raccoons, then.
I was thinking of that one when I read the OP.
I did, I did. Though, I figured that role was the exception to the rule.
I admit that the casting in Juno made me a bit weary, it was almost as if the movie had to feature a scene with J.K. going berserk when hearing about the pregnancy. I’m glad there wasn’t.
I’m surprised Snow Cake hasn’t been mentioned yet. Though it is possible that only 6 people saw it.
Rickman’s character in **Blow Dry **was more quietly disdainful than Snape, or the Sheriff of Nottingham, but I can see where some would say it wasn’t a big stretch. To me though, even if it isn’t different I enjoy watching the performance.
I just looked him up in imdb. This is a man who has played: J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man and Asst. Chief Will Pope and has been on half the GOOD TV shows made in the last decade. Good lord.
I never even suspected that was him as J. Jonah Jameson.
Typecasting gets a bad rap, I think: some actors can do just about anything, but many - probably far more - are able to do one or two things well. We know what Alan Rickman does well. It’s acting, yes. It may not be very varied acting, but then again, Keanu Reeves has done Shakespeare. Are you sure you want to see Alan Rickman in a fish out of water buddy comedy?
J. K. Simmons is the opposite, although he does seem to play a desk cop or a psychiatrist on half the primetime procedurals out there. He’s one of my favorite actors and I still haven’t gotten around to seeing Oz.
Alan Rickman voiced Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That’s a bit different, but I thought he did a great job of conveying Marvin’s depression, or whatever you want to call it.
Since in the Harry Potter films the sense he conveys is that of a person trying to pass a kidney stone while suffering weeks long constipation. And since he has done this through six movies. And since I presume in real life he has long since passed that stone and dealt with any constipation I am forced to conclude that he is indeed acting.
Rickman does play a rather deferential role as a hotel desk clerk in the BBC miniseries Smiley’s People (1982). He is on screen for exactly 25 seconds and features in the following dialogue:
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Smiley: Hello, Mr. Brownville. How are you?
Brownville: Hello Sir, How are you, and how’s Lady Ann?
Smiley: She’s very lucky. I’ve bought her a present. Could I pop it in your safe for the day and collect it later?
Brownville: It doesn’t tick, does it?
Smiley: Only in the rain.
Brownville: I adore the bag.
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This probably doesn’t count. 
Damn straight it don’t count.
A career of sneer has no preference for deference.
There might be some sneering, but I would recommend Closet Land for some broad variation on Rickman’s acting skills.
love love love that film
I love that movie. The most believable portrayal of grief and what it would be like to be with your dead ex I’ve ever seen.