Anyone who was watching Thursday morning's announcement of the 2016 Oscar nominations was hoping to find out who was nominated for Best Picture, but others were hoping to hear a mention for Alan Rickman, who passed away from cancer at the age of 69. Unfortunately, those fans of Rickman in movies like Die Hard, Love Actually, and the Harry Potter series were disappointed. Rickman may be earning tearful tributes online, but went unmentioned at the nomination ceremony.
This may seem surprising that they wouldn't honor an actor who has had such a long career that's spanned almost 30 years. He got his start playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and ended his run once again lending his voice to Absolem the Caterpillar in Alice and Wonderland: Through The Looking Glass. It's a career one where he's played such well-known characters. He's Hans Gruber for fans of action films. He's Severus Snape to almost every kid who has read a Harry Potter book, which is nearly all of them.
But what some may call a snub from the Academy this morning, others may say is a continued long history of forgetting the actor's greatest performances. As the BBC points out, he's olost the opportunity for a little gold man at least five times. He was the perfect villain in Die Hard. He showed restraint as the bad guy in the beginning of the Harry Potter series and soon became a misunderstood friend to our little wizard with the lightning scar. The list continues with his ghostly performance in 1990's Truly Madly Deeply and his part in 1995's Sense and Sensibility. He tackled a real life Irishman in Michael Collins with a sadness and toughness that makes it so memorable.
Of course, it also bears mentioning that the news of Alan Rickman's passing broke very early in the morning, spreading not even a half-hour before the nominations list was announced. It's possible that, in their preparation, the Academy quite simply didn't hear about it in time to incorporate it into the ceremony somehow. But, though the Academy didn't mention his long list of his best performances, his fans will be talking about them, and remembering him, forever. And there's still plenty of time for this oversight to be rectified during the awards ceremony itself.
