Alan Rickman Interview, Bottle Shock

MoviesOnline had the pleasure of sitting down with Alan Rickman (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) to talk about his new film, Bottle Shock, shot on location in California’s wine country. Based on a true story and directed by Randall Miller, the film reveals America’s initiation into and contribution to vinification by the enterprising artisans of Napa Valley.

It's 1976, and Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) is struggling to create the perfect chardonnay at Chateau Montelena, his vineyard in the not-yet-famous Napa Valley, where he has jeopardized everything for a dream. His son, Bo (Chris Pine), at first glance doesn't seem to have inherited his father’s love for the family business, and the two of them are often found sparring in the backyard boxing ring, each hoping to knock some sense into the other.

Alan Rickman plays Steven Spurrier, a British expatriate living in Paris who owns a small wine shop known as the Academie du Vin. To improve his slow business, he comes up with an inspired idea to educate Parisians, not on French wine, but on the new wines coming out of California. A twist of fate along a dusty road brings the floundering vintner and the struggling shop owner together, changing both their lives—and the wine industry—forever.

Villain extraordinaire, comedic personality, romantic leading man and more, Alan Rickman has performed in London’s West End, on Broadway, in film and on radio and television. In the role of Professor Severus Snape, Rickman continues to appear as the Potions Master in the Harry Potter films. Other recent credits include Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss), Perfume: the Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (with Johnny Depp). Bottle Shock is Rickman’s second movie with director Randall Miller, after Nobel Son (2007).

Moments before our interview, Los Angeles experiences an earthquake that measure 5.6 on the Richter scale. Wearing dark jeans, white cotton tee and a black cotton zip-up jacket with epaulets, here’s what the salt and pepper haired actor had to tell us about his new movie:

Alan Rickman: No.

Alan Rickman: That’s why I’m full of sense memory here.

Alan Rickman: Nope, ’94.

Alan Rickman: I know, but the body doesn’t know that and the body goes `It’s that again!’ (laughs)

Alan Rickman: This floor. But I said I’d like a copy of that interview, please. (laughs). There was no acting required.

Alan Rickman: I don’t think anything helps. It’s like all rational thought leaves your body, doesn’t it? All.

Alan Rickman: No research required (laughs). Yeah. (fakes wide-eyed terror and hangs onto the table). That’s what I did in ’94. I woke up and just hung on to the bed. How stupid was that? (laughs)

Alan Rickman: Not a lot more than I knew before, to be honest. I still enjoy it very much. Fortunately, when you talk to great experts like Bo Barrett and a documentary of Chateau Montelena was shown before the premiere the other night and he said rather encouragingly for those of us feeling inferior, "Well, it’s not so complicated. Wine is somewhere between grape juice and vinegar."(laughs)

Alan Rickman: It would be red wine, yeah.

Alan Rickman: No, it just depends a lot on what country I’m in and what food I’m eating. I tend to be loyal to the country I’m in. I spend quite a lot of time in Italy so I would never drink anything other than Italian wine and similarly in South Africa.

Alan Rickman: Yeah, Randy and Jody said `We got this script. There’s a part we think you should play. Here it is.’ (laughs) And it’s an English part so maybe there was a clue.

Alan Rickman: No. No, it’s never that sunny in France (laughs). But they did a good job. And I was there with a little European know how to say ‘Don’t park the cars so neatly.’

Alan Rickman: Thank god for school. I did French lessons in school so I was at least able to do that. And because I’m playing that kind of upper class Englishman, it’s a matter of honor to speak French with a terrible accent. (laughs). No concessions would be made at all. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the Queen speaking French. (laughs) You still know she’s the Queen. And I did, accidentally it turns out, meet Steven Spurrier a few years ago in Italy but neither of us at the time knew what any future agenda was going to be. I spoke to him on the phone. But I’m so million miles away from being the right casting to play him that in a sense, you’ve just got to go ‘Well, it’s okay. He’s called Steven Spurrier and there are facts circulating around this story and we honor those and it is true but it is based on him.’ So in a sense it isn’t an impersonation of him apart from being English and a man in a suit and tie. And we tend not to take our suit and ties off even in 100 degrees (laughs).

Alan Rickman: No. I just thought, you know, again, it’s a movie and there is a relationship there so it has to become part of that story. Similarly, the end of the movie is largely because of the conversation with him on the phone because I didn’t know that he’d restaged the competition in 2006. And he said to me on the phone, ‘I was sure this time that the French wines were going to win and it would rescue my reputation amongst the French.’ America won again.

Alan Rickman: Well, the French wouldn’t have been happy, would they?

Alan Rickman: Listen, they bought Chateau Montelena two days ago so…irony. Quelle ironie!

Alan Rickman: Exactly. The French arrive at Chateau Montelena.

Alan Rickman: Not really. In the case of those two films, fortunately, neither of those characters has got anything to do with the other. And so, that means that it’s not as if they’re expecting you to get a particular color out of the cupboard. It means that they’re going to let you free and that’s luxury.

Alan Rickman: No. Nor did I really over that period of time. It’s just like they were a couple of movies that had huge publicity budgets but there’d been a lot of other stuff in between. It depends on where you’re looking at it from and what you’re setting it against but you are talking about 20 years ago.

Alan Rickman: First of all, I never talk about Harry Potter. Second of all, where did you get that from?

Alan Rickman: And you think he turns into a villain?

Alan Rickman: Ahhh, then I’m not saying anymore. Even more I’m not going to say anything.

Alan Rickman: No, it’s an appalling thing to say, isn’t it? But it’s an absolutely true line for Steven Spurrier because it’s got a vaguely, charming honesty to it. It’s very typical of that strand of teabag as Bill Pullman calls me. No, we had an empire, didn’t we? We made it. People like him created the British Empire; people like him lost it.

Alan Rickman: Yeah.

Alan Rickman: Well, I’m always wary of words like "easy" because that’s not the point. The point is that it’s creative and that doesn’t always mean easy.

Alan Rickman: Even comfortable. I like it being difficult and uncomfortable but at least it means there’s a conversation that’s possible because there’s a lot of mutual trust and respect but, at the same time, nobody’s fawning over anybody. It’s about the work and the story and Randy and Jody are truly an independent force in every single way. And I like breathing that air which isn’t always easy but it’s constructive and creative and rewarding.

Alan Rickman: Well, it’s beautiful and it feeds your imagination because you’re in the real thing. It’s not like it’s a film set…Oh, this really exists. It’s not so much fun wearing a wool suit and a tie and socks and shoes in 100 degrees but then again, you just have to make it part of his lunacy. There’s no way his tie comes off because he’s British.

Alan Rickman: I loved working with Dennis.

Alan Rickman: I think it was pretty straight. It’s another thing about Randy and Jody. I don’t know whether they legislate for it or what, but they just have an instinctive feeling for who’s going to meld.

Alan Rickman: It absolutely depends on what you’re doing. For Snow Cake, absolutely none because it was very important I was playing somebody who knew nothing about autism, and I was working with Sigourney Weaver who’d done like six or nine months of research because she needed to know everything. So, if you named a project, I could tell you how much research had been done, it was just a question – ultimately what you want to be is free, not trapped, so the knowledge you put in there, i.e. research, is only to free you. So it just depends what you need to do.

Alan Rickman: Well I never thought I’d do a musical and that just happened. No, I just – you’re a changing unit yourself and so you open a script and it depends on who you are as to what combustion there is between you and a piece of writing. But it’s always the writing, I don’t have any – they are usually tall characters that I play.

Alan Rickman: No, but I don’t put labels on anything I play. I don’t call them that. They’re not that to me, whatever they are. It’s the last word – I would never put any judgmental word on any character. You can’t play it if you do that.

Alan Rickman: Not really, because the thing is you guys see the finished result, and every one of these, this is like five weeks in my life, and a whole bunch of people, so you see this word ‘Bottle Shock’ and you just remember people and places more than the movie really.

Alan Rickman: True. It was grape juice.

Alan Rickman: First of all I should think it’s the insurer’s choice and I’m serious. I think it’s probably illegal to have alcohol. In fact, I’m absolutely certain of that, because the continuity people just said, ‘We’re not allowed. The insurers would just have our guts for garters.’ And it’s actually dangerous. You’re in a fairly – literally explosive environment, so I don’t think it can happen. And they do it in France, of course. They have big lunches, French movies, drink a lot of wine.

Alan Rickman: Yeah, and very good it is too. I suggest you go get some.

"Bottle Shock" opens in theaters on August 8th.