Rickman on Beckett

'Having almost nothing at your disposal often produces the best work,' says Alan Rickman. 'All the information that you might need is there in the text, so you just get your miner's helmet on and go and look for it. Each really great text makes its own demands, and with this one you have to hand yourself over completely and trust that the director has done their homework and has a point of view.

'I have a copy of a letter which was given to me by a friend, to whom Beckett wrote about having attended some rehearsals. He wasn't that happy because he says in the letter: "I don't suppose they'll ever get the voice right." He said it should have an ashen, abstract quality. Ashen and abstract, I suppose, are two very difficult qualities to reproduce on stage, because they'd be inaudible. So it's great that his works are being put on film, and I'm sure Beckett would be happy too, because he's getting the vocal quality, hopefully, that's the one that's in his head.

'I get the impression that theatre sometimes frustrated him as much as it excited him. He always wanted to make it purer, purer, purer – it's almost like an installation, or performance art.

'Beckett tests the audience as much as the performers, and that's the whole point. Great writing is not meant to be a palliative. In the world that we live in, there are more and more palliatives, shorter and shorter attention spans, and the tragedy is that we will end up with a culture that is less and less able to respond to Beckett. The audience won't know that you have to do a bit of work to get into the play. As an audience member, you have to give yourself to the piece of work. It's not just going to come and stroke you.

'However good you are as an actor, you're never as good as the play. Actors are poor souls. We can only throw ourselves against the wall. Hope to stick a bit.'

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