When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

I remember sitting in his backyard, in his garden one day, and he started talking about God. He said, ‘Sometimes I believe in God; sometimes I don’t. It’s 50-50 maybe. But ever since I have cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more. …Maybe it’s because I wanna believe in an afterlife; that when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear, the wisdom you’ve accumulated, somehow it lives on.’

Then he paused for a second, and he said, ‘Yeah, but sometimes I think it’s like an on/off switch: Click! And you’re gone. And (he) paused again and said ‘That’s why I don’t like putting on/off switches on Apple devices.’

April 26, 2011

I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time. On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.

Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire, massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.

It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.