To Rickman, who is quickly establishing himself as one of the finest British actors of his generation, one key to a good performance is paying attention to those instinctive thoughts.

"Susan Sarandon said a wonderful thing to me once on the set of The January Man," he recalled during a lunch interview last week. "She saw me pacing back and forth before we were about to do a scene, while she was just standing to the side. She said, 'Don't think about it too much; that was my mistake.'

"In many ways she's right. There are times when you do have to think about it quite a lot, but there are a lot of times when you should just do it. You have to let the animal part of an actor have its head."

It's a strategy that has worked for Rickman, who has become a favorite actor of American film critics during the past several years.

His vivid performances in two Hollywood hits - he was Bruce Willis' nemesis in the original Die Hard and the Monty Pythonesque Sheriff of Nottingham in this year's Robin Hood - have made him a familiar face to audiences around the world.

He continues to do most of his work in his native Britain, including two films released this year: Truly, Madly, Deeply and Close My Eyes, a drama about an incestuous relationship that opened last weekend.

In person, he comes across as intelligent, reasonably introspective and a bit of a curmudgeon.

Asked whether he derives pleasure from his work, he replied, "I'm not sure. It's a compulsion. You kind of realize 'This is what I was supposed to do.' "

Good acting, he said, "is a mystery, but I know it has a lot to do with not minding what you reveal. Not being defensive, not using craft as a way of showing off; not keeping it on display, behind a cage.

"Acting is mostly about listening," he added. "If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent."

Whether playing a crazed terrorist or a subdued cellist, Rickman always brings a welcome specificity to his characters; one always feels he is playing a specific individual rather than a type. Talking with him confirms that is his intent.

"The aim is never to generalize," he said. "That's your job (as an actor), really. It's about seeing (a character) in three dimensions as much as possible.

"If you can't see him in three dimensions - and you can't, always, certainly in the movies - then it's about dealing in as much ambiguity as possible, so the audience has their own relationship with the character. It's about pulling the rug out from people's preconceptions."

Rickman has done that well enough to attract considerable praise - including a number of reviews that said he "stole" the recent Robin Hood from Kevin Costner. That particular comment irritates him.

"I think it's just a lazy phrase," he said. "I haven't seen Cape Fear, but I've heard the film is 'stolen' by this young girl (Juliette Lewis, who plays Nick Nolte's daughter). What does this mean?

"That means the character is properly realized. How wonderful that there's a young girl who's got the concentrated energy to be up there with Robert de Niro.

"I don't think (acting) is about competition," he added. "It shouldn't be made into that. I'm glad if people like one's work, but why turn it into something else?"

Besides, these critics are far happier with Rickman's work than the actor is himself. Asked if he is satisfied by his performances, he shook his head emphatically.

"It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in," he said. "There's a horrible inexcapability to it. I keep thinking, 'That wasn't what I was doing! I didn't sound like that. I didn't walk like that.' "

So the huge gulf between intentions and results is. . .?

"Huge."

Despite this, while making a film, Rickman never watches his "dailies" - the footage that was shot during the previous day's work.

"You would start to censor yourself, I would think," he said. "You'd be watching yourself and say, 'Is that what I do?' Then on the set you'd be thinking of what you saw in the dailies, and you'd think, "Oh, I mustn't do that.' Suddenly everything would be slightly constrained."

And those little voices wouldn't be heard.