Alan Rickman's phenomenal legacy in his own words

Alan Rickman’s incredible and almost magical career spanned over three decades and touched the hearts of generations of audiences.

As Severus Snape he sparked fear among the students of Hogwarts and eventually showed us how brave he really was. And as Hans Gruber, he redefined action movies!

Rickman, who played professor Severus Snape in the film adaptation of J.K. Rowling's book series, died on Thursday at the age of 69.

On June 18, 2015, Alan Rickman talked to Mashable about the impact his roles have had over the years. “As you wander the globe and people come up to you, you find that different films mean so much to different people," he said. "Different things for different folks."

"Potter is such a worldwide phenomenon that it’s different from a film like Snow Cake, for example, in which Sigourney Weaver played an autistic woman. That film means an incredible amount to people who know about that issue."

In 2011, Professor Snape was voted top Harry Potter character. Photo: BBC

A Little Chaos, the movie he directed in 2014, stars Kate Winslet as fictional character who designs the gardens of Versailles. Rickman was proud of its feminist message, reports Mashable.

He hoped the film would inspire the next generation of women to take action. "Young girls watching the film will find out that Sabine never existed, and they will start thinking about women in professions and what doors are open and what are closed."

Rickman played a fictionalized version of Louis XIV in the movie, and said the lessons the king learned from Sabine were crucial: “Rosebuds bloom and fade, and you should honor the blooming and the fading — both parts of life.”

One scene was particularly eye-opening. In it, the film's women can be themselves freely, without the pressures and expectations they usually face in a male-dominated society. "I'm very affected by the fact that typically, it's men who say they're moved by that scene," Rickman said. "To us, it's a very secret world."

Rickman also spoke about other films he's made that strike a chord with different fans at different moments: "Truly Madly Deeply is a film I made nearly 30 years ago, and I hear they recommend that to people in grief therapy, reports Mashable.

"And obviously, Harry Potter’s huge, and still going. All I can say is we worked really hard on it and we were very serious about doing it. I’m very proud of the work we all did on that thing. I'm happy that there's a legacy," he added. "The whole point of what we do is that it should live in other people's minds."