You can’t blame a girl for trying.

Ever time I have to chance to talk to Alan Rickman, I try to ask him about Snape — but he won’t spill. I’m not the only reporter who has this problem — Rickman is notorious for not saying anything about the Harry Potter series, because he doesn’t want to ruin it for the kids who have yet to finish reading “Deathly Hallows.” And while I can respect that in theory, it’s been a year. Even J.K. Rowling herself talks about what he won’t.

So, when he was doing press for “Bottle Shock”, I thought perhaps he might respond to a spoiler-free type question. Instead of asking about Snape’s motivations, or the great Snape debate — which prompted its own book — I thought something more general, something connective, might work. His character Steven Spurrier runs the Academy of Wine, and cares deeply about the art and science of winemaking. His other character Severus Snape is a professor of potions, and cares deeply about the art and science of potionmaking (so much so he can invent his own, or improve on pre-existing ones — see “Half-Blood Prince”). Wouldn’t the two characters have so much in common — despite being from disparate worlds — that they would have a lot to talk about?

“Sneaky question!” Rickman laughed. “Sneaky question which I’m not going to fall for!”

Instead of giving me the standard line about, “I don’t talk about that person,” Rickman explained that his decision to not engage in Snape-talk was about more than just avoiding spoilers.

“Here’s the serious answer,” Rickman said. “Some things should not be explained, not talked about, just left. It’s such an important thing for children, and I see too much of their expressions. There’s too much shock when they meet the real people playing these parts, because they’ve got something living inside their heads. We live in a time and culture where everything is overexplained, overexamined, before, during, and after, and I think here’s an opportunity — because God knows it doesn’t need the publicity — to just leave it alone.”

Bill Pullman, his co-star who had been paired with him for all his “Bottle Shock” interviews and was sitting next to him, laughed. “You get a lot of points for that question,” he said, as I stood up to leave. Which tells me that Rickman had been fielding Potter questions all day, and I probably came as close to an answer as I was ever going to get. Until next time…

If Alan Rickman talked Snape, would that ruin anything for you? If you could ask him one question, what would it be?