She, of course, has missed him so much that she idealizes him. But even when he smiles at her, there’s an aura of sadness about him, an indication that in his new state, he doesn’t quite know where home is anymore-though he does know that it can no longer be with her. In an early scene, he cradles Stevenson in his arms, seemingly as real as flesh and blood. The character of Jamie, a vaguely scruffy charmer in a droopy black coat, is a universe away from that of Hans Gruber.
This is a movie filled to brimming with tenderness, one of the most beautiful and strangely joyous movies about grief ever made-not least because it reminds us that petty annoyances, as well as grand, overwhelming feelings, are part of the process. As Jamie, a cellist-ghost who returns to comfort his bereaved girlfriend (played by the superb Juliet Stevenson), Rickman was extraordinary in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Not long after that Die Hard debut, audiences saw Rickman in a very different role, one whose memory still elicits a collective swoon from just about everyone who’s seen it. He wasn’t cruel, just wickedly funny, as if he were teasing out another classic American attribute: our ability to laugh at ourselves. He was an Englishman deeply attuned to classic American overfriendliness, and as Gruber, he plucked our eagerness to be liked and trusted like a string on a harp. His faux innocence in the scene, in which he pretends to be an ordinary businessman as opposed to a Euro-evil mastermind, is part of what makes him such a gloriously memorable villain. As Hans Gruber, he perfected a cartoon-elegant German accent but also, in the character’s first face-to-face meeting with Bruce Willis’ muscle-bound cop John McClane, affected a comically splendid American twang. If Rickman’s voice was his most memorable attribute, he also showed us the beauty of the sneer, with the exaltation of the eyeroll close behind. Rickman found the sweet spot right between leading man and character actor, and it suited him. In a profession where so many people rush to be stars, he had taken his time, and perhaps the film career that flourished from that point was especially rich and varied because of that. His first film role, and the one that introduced him to American audiences, was that of the urbane villain Hans Gruber in John McTiernan’s 1988 Die Hard. At age 26 he applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and he worked in theater and film through much of the 1980s. Rickman came to acting late, and came to film acting even later: In his early adult life, he’d worked as a graphic designer.