Where else would you go other than Alan Rickman?

Thats how Harry Potter casting director Janet Hirshenson put it when asked about the actors considered for the role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film franchise. Hirshenson joined the production after another casting director had worked on the movies for a year and said Rickman was already locked in at the time. She had no argument.

I dont know if that was the first initial one they reached out to or not but ... it was Alan Rickman, she said.

Today, were more than a year removed from losing our favorite Potions Master. Rickman died in January 2016 at the age of 69 after a battle with cancer. The actor has an assortment of iconic roles under his belt, but Harry Potter fans know him best as the complicated and polarizing Professor Snape. His co-workers on the films, however, simply remember him as a remarkable person, a man who even once made an extremely sick childs dream come true.