10 Serious Actors Who Successfully Made The Jump To Comedy

If you've gotten this far in life without understanding just how magnificent Alan Rickman is in his more dramatic roles, then you need to seriously reevaluate your life choices. Most people know him best as Hans Gruber or Professor Snape (or possibly as the Sheriff of Nottingham, if you're a very specific kind of strange), but before all that, Rickman was a classically trained actor and member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His early work includes a number of dramatic and comedic serials for the BBC, though things didn't really pick up for him until he was dropped from the roof of Nakatomi Plaza. From then on Rickman seemed to be battling Gary Oldman in a quest to rack up the highest number of memorable villains.

But in 1999, Kevin Smith came along and shined a light on Rickman's humorous side. His role in Dogma - as Metatron, the archangel who acts as the mouthpiece of God - proved that his unique voice worked just as well in comedic roles.

Rickman's taste in comedy stood firmly on the weirder side of the spectrum, which allowed him to blossom in his roles in Galaxy Quest, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and, most recently, CBGB.