He parlayed his art studies into a successful Soho graphics-design business. Rickman reclines on the gray dressing room sofa and pictures the pillar-box on Berwick Street outside his design firm in Soho where he mailed his application to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). “My life changed the moment I posted that letter,” he says. There’s a voice inside you that tells you what you should do. I’d been doing some amateur theater. Our design group was very successful, but I could also see that it was just going to repeat itself. And then that voice came up and said, ‘It’s now or never to change.'”
Rickman did two years at RADA, earning his way as a dresser for Sir Ralph Richardson and Nigel Hawthorne and winning RADA’s highest performing award, the Bancroft Medal. But Rickman’s real reward was psychological. “Most of our lives, we function with a big divide between here and here,” he says, drawing an imaginary line between his head and torso. “When I went to RADA, my body was saying, “About time.” It was being used, and I was aware that I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do, and just in time. In acting, you can’t hang about too long.”