Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman
first met in the late 1980s during stage rehearsals. She immediately sensed a kindred spirit behind his intense,
seldom-smiling presence.
They built a long, quiet friendship through years of working together—especially on Sense and Sensibility (1995), where she was also the screenwriter, and later Love Actually (2003).
He was a steady, encouraging presence rather than a flashy one.
After her marriage to Kenneth Branagh ended, the story says Rickman sat with her through the night with a bottle of wine and almost no words.
She later wrote that he “saved me without trying.”
When he became ill, she noticed before he told her. They agreed to walk through it together. In his last years he opened up more; she told him she had loved him from the start as a friend.
He joked she would have “ruined” him; she said she would have healed him.
After he died in 2016, she called him the finest of actors and the truest of friends, and still visits his favorite café table, orders two teas, and talks to him 🙏♥️