AR has read the books, well, at least DH!

[Carol]

Alla:
> 
> I see your point if the adaptation has similar intentions as the original, even if adaptation cuts storylines, etc, but characters and plot remain for the most part the same. So again, please do not get me wrong, I do not think it is bad for Alan Rickman to read the books at all. Although even for him, what good does it do him that he reads about Snape delivering the Prophecy for example and guilt and remorse he feels because of it if , if it will not be touched upon in DH (of course we do not know yet one way or another). <snip>

Carol responds:

Even if Snape as eavesdropper plays no role in the films, knowing that he was and knowing the extent of his remorse could help Rickman play the role. It would also help to know, for example, that Book!Snape revealed his Dark Mark to Fudge in a futile attempt to convince him that Voldemort is back and that he went off on a dangerous mission that we later learn is a return to Voldemort on DD's orders. Those things help Rickman as actor to understand the character he's playing, one whose personality is at odds with his loyalties, which must remain ambiguous (but who can't appear wholly evil or the revelation would make no sense), even though they don't appear in the films. Rickman said in an interview that HBP was the first film he'd made with full knowledge of his motivation, which accounts for the facial expressions during the Unbreakable Vow scene. I don't think he could have played that scene (or the too-brief duel with Harry after DD's death) nearly as effectively had he not read the whole series, especially the last three or four books.

And Rickman also says something somewhere about the way Snape walks, which he tried to teach the boy who played Teen!Snape in OoP, though we don't get to see him walking. (Teen!Snape didn't walk that way, but I think that Rickman wanted continuity in the character.) That sweeping walk comes straight from the books.

Good directors do listen to the actors, especially highly gifted veteran actors who understand their character and his or her motivation. (They even gave Jason Isaacs a snake-headed cane at his request because he thought it fit the character even though that wasn't in the book.) I agree that Book!Snape would never have hit students on the head with books; he wouldn't have needed to. But Rickman seems to have enjoyed the chance to get in a bit of physical comedy--and Film!Snape probably enjoyed the chance to take out a bit of his frustration on Potter and Weasley (just as film!Hermione hits Ron with a book in HBP). But that scene doesn't seriously undermine Snape as a character (unlike Dumbledore yelling at and shaking Harry, which Gambon would have known was contrary to DD's character had he read the books. 

The thing is, WB is trying, in general, to produce an adaptation that's faithful to the spirit of the books, which requires the characters, especially the important characters, to share the personality and motivation (and preferably, mannerisms, accents, vocal inflections, and facial expressions) of their book equivalents. The Disney version of "Three Musketeers" that you cited had no such goal. It was meant only as light entertainment, so loosely based on the books that the author would not have recognized his own characters.

Consider for a moment the performances of Christopher Lee, who played Saruman in the LOTR films, and John Noble, who played Denethor. Lee read the books multiple times (and had no qualms about talking to Peter Jackson about how he thought a scene should be played). John Noble never so much as read the scenes involving Denethor. Lee was, IMO, spot on in his characterization. Noble was sickeningly off, completely missing the proud and tough old warrior who wrongly thought himself a match for Sauron. Part of it was the way his scenes were written (those grapes; his death) but part was his (IMO) complete misunderstanding of the character--because he'd never read the books. I think he might have requested--and received--some alterations had he done so. (Jackson and his team were willing to experiment. They filmed several variations of the scene with Frodo and Gollum on the Cracks of Doom, including one that matched the book, and chose the one they thought worked best dramatically--unfortunate choice, IMO, but at least the actors knew that it wasn't the canonical version and were part of the creative process of changing the book to the film.)

Carol, who still thinks that actors owe it to themselves and to the audience to know their characters as originally written before they attempt to play them