Turns out that Professor Snape was a secret double agent. So what does that make Alan Rickman, the man who played him in the "Harry Potter" films, if he secretly knew that his character was a secret double agent?

A very well prepared actor, for one.

The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor was taken aside by Potter author JK Rowling and told Snape's arc to the end of the series -- and Snape's true allegiance -- years before the final book in the series, "The Deathly Hallows," was released. That enabled him to have a certain insight to the character that not even anyone on set could match.

"It was quite amusing, too, because there were times when a director would tell Alan what to do in a scene and he would say something like, 'No I can't do that - I know what is going to happen and you don't'" series producer David Heyman told the LA Times. "He had a real understanding of the character and now looking back, you can see there was always more going on there -- a look, an expression, a sentiment -- that hint at what is to come ... the shadow that he casts in these films is a huge one and the emotion he conveys is immeasurable."

That secret knowledge is something Rickman hinted at last summer.

"Certainly, I did say I needed to talk to her before I could get a handle on how to play it, and we did have a phone conversation," he told RTE. "She certainly didn't tell me what the end of the story was going to be in any way at all, so I was having to buy the books along with everybody else to find out, 'And now what?' No, she gave me one little piece of information, which I always said I would never share with anybody and never have, and never will. It wasn't a plot point, or crucial in any tangible way, but it was crucial to me as a piece of information that made me travel down that road rather than that one or that one or that one."

For more, click over to the LA Times.

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