One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

The line expresses an actor’s desire for leadership that goes beyond technical competence. Rickman suggests that what makes collaboration artistically satisfying is a director who can envision possibilities—tone, subtext, rhythm, and visual storytelling—and who can invite performers into that imaginative world. Implicitly, it contrasts routine or purely managerial direction with direction that is exploratory and risk-taking. The quote also hints at the actor’s dependence on a director’s interpretive framework: even a strong performance benefits from a guiding intelligence that can shape the whole. In short, it’s a plea for creative vision as the engine of meaningful theatre or film-making.