(CNN) -- Alan Rickman, the British actor with the unforgettable voice who played the brooding Professor Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" films as well as "Die Hard" villain Hans Gruber, has died after a short battle with cancer, a source familiar with his career said Thursday.

He was 69.

"There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death," "Potter" author J.K. Rowling tweeted Thursday.

Fans had last "a great talent," she said, and his family "have lost a part of their hearts."

Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the "Potter" films, tweeted, "Heartbreaking news about lovely Alan. Nobody else could be as hilarious, tragic, terrifying & truthful all at the same time."

A smooth-voiced London native, Rickman worked on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in UK television projects before earning his first film role as German terrorist Gruber, opposite Bruce Willis' John McClane, in 1988's "Die Hard."

He had been in Hollywood only two days, but that he almost didn't take the role.

"I read it, and I said, 'What the hell is this? I'm not doing an action movie,' " he recounted in a 2015 interview with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

It ended up being one of the most memorably villainous roles in film history.

In the 2015 interview, Rickman recounted that he helped shape the role, despite being a novice film actor hired because he would work cheap.

After being fitted to wear a militaristic outfit as leader of a band of terrorists, Rickman suggested that perhaps Gruber could wear a suit, affect an American accent and pretend to be a civilian trapped in the building for a scene with Willis' cop character.

He said he was told, "You'll wear what you're told."

"But then I came back, and they handed me the new script" that included the revisions.

"So you know, it just pays to occasionally use a little bit of theater training when you're doing a movie."

Despite acclaim for his portrayal of Gruber and performances in movies such as "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Truly Madly Deeply" and "Sense and Sensibility," Rickman was never nominated for an Oscar.

He did win a BAFTA Award for supporting actor in "Robin Hood" and was nominated three other times, including for "Truly Madly Deeply," in 1990, and "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.

He also won a Golden Globe in 1997 for best actor in the HBO biopic "Rasputin."

Although he carried on a lifelong love affair with stage acting, Rickman is probably best known to younger filmgoers as Snape, the antagonistic and bullying wizard who, in the end, plays a crucial role in the Potter saga.

He took the role in 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" without knowing much about the character.

"People thought I knew a lot, and I didn't," he said. "When I was asked to do it, there were only three books written."

But he did have a clue, he said in a 2011 thank-you letter to Rowling at the conclusion of the film series, which saw stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up on screen.


That knowledge helped shape his portrayal of the character, he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011.

"It was a punctuation mark in my life every year, because I would be doing other things but always come back to that, and I was always aware of my place in the story even as others around me were not," Rickman told the newspaper.

His presence was invaluable, "Potter" producer David Heyman told the Los Angeles 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," Heyman said. "The shadow that he casts in these films is a huge one, and the emotion he conveys is immeasurable."

Rickman was born in 1946 to a working-class West London family. Despite an early interest in acting, he studied graphic design in college and owned a design business with friends after graduating.

In 1971, at the age of 25, he applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, one of the oldest acting schools in England.

"There was an inevitability about my being an actor since about the age of 7, but there were other roads that had to be traveled first," Biography.com quoted him as saying.

In 1978, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, followed by roles in British television and theater.

In 1985, he won the role of Le Vicomte de Valmont in the stage version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," his first major villain -- and the breakthrough role for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 1988.

Later that year, he went to Hollywood to try his hand at film acting. Despite not knowing much about the film business, he was offered the "Die Hard" role immediately

"I'd never made a film before, but I was extremely cheap," he said in the BAFTA interview.

And despite almost rejecting "Die Hard," he said, the progressive storyline won him over.

"Every single black character in that film is positive and highly intelligent," he said. "So, 28 years ago, that's quite revolutionary, and quietly so."

Playing Gruber gave rise to the notion of Rickman as master of villainous roles, one at which he often bristled.

"I don't see them any of them as one word," Rickman said of his roles in 2011. "It doesn't matter what I'm playing, it's not one word, and I think any actor would say the same."

Not all of his roles were heavy or dark, of course. In 1999's campy "Galaxy Quest," a heavily made-up Rickman played a classically trained actor named Sir Alexander Dane. In the movie, Dane was a washed-up science-fiction actor whose character had a trademark expression, "by Grabthar's hammer!"

The exclamation was trending Thursday on Twitter in tribute to Rickman.

Rickman fans still have a few more things to look forward to.

His film "Eye in the Sky," about drone warfare in Kenya, is set for March release. He also did voice work for the upcoming "Alice Through the Looking Glass."

The-CNN-Wire: By Jason Hanna and Michael Pearson (CNN's Richard Greene contributed to this report)