Usually, I only listen to audiobooks for long books, such as those by James Michener or David McCullough. I chose to listen to this book as an audiobook after hearing on a podcast that it would have some of the actors from Harry Potter narrating. That turned out to be Bonnie Wright (who portrayed Ginny Weasley) and Alfred Enoch (who portrayed Dean Thomas). Bonnie read the introduction penned by Emma Thompson, Rickman’s long-time friend and frequent co-star. I’m not sure what Alfred read. In either case, I don’t think it’s worth purchasing the audiobook for this reason.

As far as the audiobook itself, I can’t say I enjoyed the production. Steven Crossley is the narrator. I haven’t listened to anything else he’s narrated (that I know of) but it sounded entirely too much like he was trying to be Alan Rickman while he was reading it. This meant inflections in speech as he interpreted the words, trying to get across what he perceived to be what Rickman was feeling when he wrote these diary entries. I’m not sure that’s how it should be for an audiobook. After all, while reading the words on the written page, we often develop our own thoughts on what emotions are at play. Crossley’s narration takes that interpretation away.

As for the actual material, I so wanted to like this. I was a huge fan of Rickman, from his appearance in Die Hard through the Harry Potter series, and his many other roles. I was looking forward to this when it was first announced for publication. Unfortunately, the “diary entries” vacillated between what sounded more like an appointment book and notes for a book he possibly intended to write one day about his life and experiences. There were some parts that were enjoyable, such as his thoughts on Tim Allen while working on Galaxy Quest. His work as a Producer to get My Name is Rachel Corrie onto the stage is fascinating, although for a long time I wasn’t sure exactly what is going on. The entries reading more like notes meant sometimes I couldn’t pick up on what was happening until much later, or after doing a search on the internet about the material.

Rickman can be harsh at times. There’s early criticism here of Daniel Radcliffe during the filming of Harry Potter. Much later, after having lived through the entire experience with these young actors, he meets Radcliffe for lunch and seems to respect him much more, leading the reader to believe he saw Radcliffe evolve as an actor in a way Rickman didn’t expect. Radcliffe isn’t the only one who gets criticized. Even Thompson, one of his closest friends, is the subject of a few jabs. The entries seem to “call it like it is” from Rickman’s perspective. The question is, did he ever really mean for these to be released without the hand of an editor? The world will never know.

It’s apparent Rickman had a love/hate relationship with many of his roles, especially the ones he was most famous for. Die Hard gets mentioned a lot, although he eventually admits to a certain fondness for the place it has in the culture. Snape was also a role he thought about leaving part of the way through filming, but then saw it through. He doesn’t talk at all about filming Love, Actually in which he starred with two of his closest friends, Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson, among others. I was waiting as the date of the death of Natasha Richardson approached, wondering how Rickman would handle the news of her death. It seemed that there were many of his friends who left this world unexpectedly.

Rima Horton was Rickman’s long-time companion and, eventually, his wife. Her afterword, which she read for the audiobook, was very emotional and one of the best parts of the audiobook for me. There are many details here of their lives together and I could feel that Rickman was devoted to her and she understood him in a way no one else could. The work on a house in Italy was a frequent subject, and the two loved spending time there. He also cheers her on with her attempts at public service in Kensington and Chelsea, where they resided in London. Rima was a member of the London Borough Council for twenty years.

I don’t know if I would have liked Madly, Deeply better if I’d read it rather than listened to it. The format is a bit difficult to get behind. I suppose one day I might go back and try it, to see if it works better. I can’t recommend the audiobook as it was hard to listen to.