Alan Rickman has gone from Dev to Versailles

Alan Rickman’s latest role as King Louis is another example of his penchant for playing real people, writes Ed Power.

ALAN RICKMAN has a favourite ritual. “When I’m making a movie and I come out of the make-up trailer, I always mess up my hair,” he says. “If someone has made my hair perfect… well, life isn’t perfect, is it?”

He brings this gritty sensibility to bear on A Little Chaos, his second feature as director. It is a funny, profound period piece, the fictional story of a female landscaper, Sabine De Barra, charged with designing a garden for Louis XIV’s playground at Versaille.