[Nick-Ko-Las Enigma]

Rickman good at being bad

Roles such as Sweeney Todd's Judge Turpin actually infrequent but always memorable

By JIM SLOTEK -- Sun Media

Alan Rickman says the singing is what drew him to the part of Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.


Snape of things to come



LONDON -- Alan Rickman? Oh right, he's that British actor who always plays villains. Die Hard, Harry Potter, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and, um ...

"Weirdly, I play those roles so rarely," says Rickman, who is actually quite friendly though his voice and manner bespeaks condescension. "It's just maybe three times, in movies with big publicity budgets.

Or four. He is a rather hateful and unscrupulous character in Tim Burton's dark revenge tale Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Rickman plays Judge Turpin, the corrupt magistrate who'd framed our throat-slashing anti-hero (Johnny Depp), had him sent to an Australian penal colony and now has designs on Todd's daughter, whom he'd adopted as "a ward."

"But it's just like he's one of many (villains) in the film. It's not a kind of who's-bad who's-good thing. I don't judge them that way in any case."

It's true that, if you look a little sideways, you'll see Rickman in some non-villainous roles, indeed. The folks in Wawa, Ont., for example, still remember him from Snow Cake, the quirky Canadian film he shot there with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss.

"That's a good example," he says. "From my end of the telescope, there's an awful lot of work there with no money for publicity. I have two films coming out this next year which are so different, to me coming from Sweeney Todd, I'd had to say, 'Well, this will be interesting, playing all these sweet-natured people.' "


One is Bottle Shock, which will debut at Sundance next month. "I play Steven Spurrier, and he's a wine expert. The film is the true story of a 1976 blind wine tasting in Paris when the Americans beat the French with an all-French jury. I think the French are still cross over that one."

The other is Nobel Son, a fictional tale due out in March about a Nobel prize winner whose son kidnaps him and demands the prize money as ransom.

HIGH WIRE

As for Sweeney Todd, the surprisingly faithful take on the Sondheim musical, he says it was the singing that attracted him. "At this point in one's life, you're looking for the next high wire. And that was definitely one. On a practical level you've got to find out -- 'Can I hit those notes?' -- because some of them are a bit high. Then you go quickly and find a singing teacher and work."

What was supposed to be one month of training has carried on. "I've kept up the singing lessons because it helps an enormous amount with speaking, one discovers. I have an incredibly sarcastic singing teacher, he's so rude, there's a sort of masochism involved. But I know something's happening that's making speaking and breathing better because it's basically reminding me to breathe. And you don't realize how much you forget to do that."

Judge Turpin's duets with Todd on the song Pretty Women were recorded separately. "All I asked was, 'Can I go second?' because I'll hear Johnny and he's got the lighter voice and he's the one who's driving the piece. So I want to know what train I'm jumping on," Rickman says.

A more practical problem was the shaving foam. "If you've got to sing and be shaved, it's not going to help if you've got foam right over your mouth. If you see the film again and you see he puts the stuff on my mouth, I go (he purses his lips), so I can open again and sing."