Alan Rickman pretty much was Severus Snape, he owned that role so hard copies of the 6th Harry Potter book burst into flames when he walked past them. And now that he’s sadly no longer with us because God apparently needed a scary sounding British man to read bed time stories to Jesus, we’re going to dig up an old article of ours to talk about one the more quirky facts about the character he’ll forever be synonymous with and the fact that Rickman never changed clothes while playing him, like, ever.
Now throughout the course of the films virtually every character had their wardrobe redesigned at least once, for example Dumbledore clearly got increasingly more pimp silken robes towards the end of the series in a clear and obvious effort to try and disguise the fact the original actor playing him died like, just as he’d predicted prior to his granddaughter forcing him to take the role.
In a similar vein, Dolores “Fuck You” Umbridge’s outfits got pinker as she gained more power and influence. Seriously. Snape on the other hand wore the same tattered set of robes throughout all 8 films because it was argued that Severus Snape isn’t the kind of man who cares about fashion or the fact he’s walking around smelling like a boggart had shit itself to death in his robes.
In fact, when Jany Temime became the lead costume designer for the series during the filming of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape’s outfit was literally the only one she didn’t bother changing because it was universally agreed by everyone on set that Snape looked perfectly fine just the way he was and that it wasn’t at all like his character to change his outfit. By which we mean, everyone was probably too scared to ask Rickman to take it off.
So the next time you watch one of the Harry Potter movies and Snape walks on screen, after downing a shot of neat whiskey in Alan Rickman’s honor, just think that he wore that same outfit every time he walked on set, then imagine how much it probably smelled, especially when he wafted it around when he was pretending to cast spells and stuff. Because that is a legacy worth talking about forever.
