Daniel Radcliffe has no plan to distance himself from “Potter”
Daniel Radcliffe has been busy in the UK recently, promoting Kill Your Darlings and A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Daniel spoke to The Guardian about Harry Potter, the variety of roles he has recently played, the paparazzi, and the “Fassbender Test.”
While much of the interview is consumed by talk about Harry Potter and the way it has impacted his life, Daniel also speaks about the variety of roles he has chosen to play recently. He says,
I can’t put it down to anything more than that I’ve got weird taste. There have been plenty of weird roles so far and more to come, I hope. I pick films based on scripts and directors and parts. I think I’ve got good taste, but it’s slightly left of center. I’m not interested in making films I’ve seen before. There’s nothing more exciting to me when I read a script than originality. That’s all it’s governed by; there’s no master plan to distance myself from Potter with every role.
He goes on to say that when he signed up for Harry Potter, he wasn’t sure what he was getting involved in. He says he was briefly conflicted about whether to stay in the role:
For a while, I thought, ‘If I do all of them, will I be able to move on to other stuff, or should I start doing other stuff now?’ But in the end I decided I was having way too much fun. And actually there aren’t many great parts out there for teenage boys, certainly not as good as Harry Potter.
Daniel discusses growing up in the spotlight and how difficult it was to be a teenager under such intense scrutiny from the media. He also shares a behind-the-scenes story from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
In the second film, there was a shot where I had to hitch my trouser legs up to show I’m not wearing socks, and at twelve my legs were way too hairy, and they said, ‘Nobody’s going to believe any twelve-year-old would have that much hair,’ so they had to shave two inches up from my ankle.
Daniel explains how he now picks the roles he takes and what the “Fassbender test” is.
I developed it with James Watkins, who directed The Woman in Black, and we call it the ‘Fassbender test.’ If you’re ever being asked to do anything, you just ask yourself a question: ‘Would Michael Fassbender do it?’ This referred to a moment when I was being asked to do something a bit more corporate than I’d ever done before, and it came down to the ‘Fassbender test,’ and we thought he wouldn’t do it. It’s a pretty good test for a lot of young actors.
Daniel also spoke to Sky News, where he warned celebrities that they should not expect to have a private life if they share too much about their lives on Twitter and Facebook. He says,
Also, I don’t have Twitter, and I don’t have Facebook, and I think that makes things a lot easier because if you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you’re doing moment to moment and then claim you want a private life, then no one is going to take that request seriously.
Daniel also reveals how he splurges on books, saying,
The only time I will spend a wad of cash in one go – and this is going to sound so nerdy – is in bookshops. I’ve gone out of bookshops with a pile of fifteen to twenty books before. It’s excessive. I have this thing in bookshops where if I see this thing that there’s a good chance I may never ever see again or sounds interesting then I have to get it.
Finally, Daniel spoke to BAFTA about acting and what he looks for in a role. In the video, he also talks about some of his acting inspirations and gives some advice to aspiring young actors.
To read the full Guardian interview and watch a behind-the-scenes video please visit The Guardian website here. To see the interview with Sky News please click here. For the BAFTA interview visit the website here.
What do you make of what Daniel says about the Harry Potter films and the way he now chooses his roles? Let us know in the comments!
