For most actors, particularly in Britain, it’s an honor simply to have the talent and the fortune to be able to have a steady career in acting. For Daniel Radcliffe, it also pays huge dividends to look very much like one of the country’s most iconic characters in literature.
Radcliffe has played the titular character in the hugely successful Harry Potter films, which has been merely the icing on the cake to a well-regarded reputation as an actor in his home country for films like The Tailor Of Panama and December Boys, TV films like David Copperfield, and stage productions like the critically-acclaimed Equus. Now the 19 year-old returns in the latest film in the series Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and explained for us what he feels is different about the character in this latest film.
“For me, the difference in Harry this year is that in the past whereas he's been…the big change for Harry this year is his relationship with Dumbledore,” Daniel explains, “Previously it's always been very much teacher and student. This year it kind of changes it to being his General, a favorite Lieutenant.”
”I mean, Harry's become a foot soldier in this movie and is happy to be so,” he continues, “Also, in all the other ones you sort of see Harry as being, like, 'Yeah, we're going to get Voldermort. We're going to kill'em.' But no one really does anything towards him, whereas this year he's actually being proactive and planning and actually trying to do something towards the ultimate destruction of Voldemort. That's the difference in Harry this year.”
One of the things Daniel says he appreciates about the newest Harry Potter film that it’s more comedic than the more recent films, particularly in regards to his co-star Rupert Grint, who plays best friend Ron Weasley.
“I have to say that this in terms of the comedy is Rupert's finest hour,” Radcliffe believes, “He's absolutely brilliant in the movie and kind of reveals himself to be a fantastic application of physical comedy. You balance the dramatic stuff as well, obviously, but the scene on the broomstick in quidditch is something like out of Buster Keaton or something. It's absolutely brilliant. It was wonderful.
As the characters have progressed into their teen years, one of the big elements of Harry Potter’s character development is their relationships with the opposite sex. Radcliffe touches upon the kissing he had to do with Bonnie Wright, who plays Ron’s sister Ginny Weasely, who is Harry’s crush.
“I think, to be honest with you, we're going to come out very well because poor Bonnie who obviously has the kiss to me,” Daniel recalls, “And I saw the film again a couple of nights ago at the premiere and I really watched it. My, God. My lips are like the lips of a horse. They're like distending independently away from my face and trying to encompass hers, so I apologize, Bonnie.”
However, don’t count on any of that translating into his real life right now.
“I don't know,” Radcliffe says, “I'm not really doing the dating thing. I don't feel like I'm in the world of dating. I don't feel like a young twenty something. I don't have that sort of life. I'm working. I'm happy to be working.”
“In some cases I don't have time to have a girlfriend. I do,” he continues, “I'm like everyone else, I suppose, though. It's weird. People ask if being Harry Potter helps you get girls. I don't know. I was eight or nine when I started doing Harry Potter. So I don't know what it's like to get girls without having the aid of it. So I don't know.”
One of the more interesting moments of Harry Potter’s character arc in the new film is when Harry takes a potion from Professor Slughorn, played by Jim Broadbent. Radcliffe describes how he prepared himself for that scene and whether this more hidden side Harry exhibits is closer in personality to his real-life one.
“To be honest I just let the more manic side of myself that I suppress for twenty three hours of everyday loose for a while on set and just became a kind of uncontrollable, vaguely irritating but sort of vaguely amusing person that I keep hidden,” Daniel says, “I just let him out and went mad for a few days. It was great fun to do. Actually, it is a kind of side to the character that hasn't really been seen before and David Heyman leaned over to me, he was sitting next to me at the premiere, and said, 'That's my favorite piece of acting that you do in this film.' So maybe I should've been playing slightly more maniacal all along.
“I do think people probably…if you spent like a proper amount of time with me you would probably wonder if I was on drugs,” he adds, “I'm not. I'm just incredibly hyperactive. Manic. I can be quiet and serious at the same time, but like at the premiere in England the other night, my God, I was just this kind of beast that had been unleashed onto the red carpet. I believe that's probably quite true of most teenagers, that complete inability to control hormones or desire.”
Daniel says it’s the character arcs such as the romantic entanglements, particularly Potter’s, that makes the stories so endearing and identifiable with its young audience in the first place.
“I think it's kind of a wonderful thing in the film, the fact that these guys are all…I find it particularly endearing with Harry that he's this kind of very, very acclaimed wizard and he’s crap with women,” he believes, “I think it's a wonderfully endearing quality that he has. In terms of this film, I think there are basically two types of teenage relationships.”
“One, mine and Bonnie’s, which is that kind of teenage thing where you're in love and it's pure and it's innocent and it's all that matters in your life, when you're fourteen or fifteen and you fall in love with somebody. That's all there is,” Radcliffe adds, “Then there's the other kind which is kind of much more carnal and energetic which is the one that Rupert was lucky enough to have. So those are my thoughts on the relationships in this Harry Potter film. You kind of slightly lost me, to be perfectly honest, with the reconciling. I'm not sure I quite got what you meant on that.”
One of the moving moments of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Radcliffe attests to is the death of Dumbledore.
“I think it's actually a really, really moving moment, the moment when the wands are raised in salutes,” Daniel believes, “I think the dark mark in the sky is slowly kind of eroded by this white light. It's a wonderful moment. But I mean it was a hard scene for me because I at the time of the filming had never lost anyone close to me. You can never hope to imagine what that feels like, what that must feel like.”
“So I was trying to kind of imagine the feelings and I hope that if came even a third of the way close to being a real then I'm happy with that, to be honest,” he continues, “In terms of losing Dumbledore in the series it's very sad for me because I won't get to work so much with Michael [Gambon] in the seventh film. I'll miss him because we have a great time together.”
Director David Yates has been the first since Chris Columbus with The Sorcerer’s Stone and The Chamber Of Secrets to return for a second consecutive Harry Potter film with The Half-Blood Prince. Daniel explains to us how he believes Yates’s filmmaking has been so crucial to the progression of the film franchise.
“David is a very, very softly spoken man,” Radcliffe believes, “So his manner is rather wonderful on set. You would never pick him out as the director. Nothing about him screams, 'I am the creative power house of this movie!' He's very, very quiet. What he has a director, as well which is brilliant, is the real ability to be able to see the entire storyline in his head in one frame almost and to be able to encapsulate it all in his mind at any given moment.”
“So he can pick out moments from the end of the fifth film and find a relevance with them at the beginning of the seventh,” he adds, “He will find things, link moments constantly in the story. He's just got a fantastic vision of the films and from day one. Also, the other thing I would say very quickly before I bore you all with this craze is that his enthusiasm for being on 'Potter' is the same now as it was on the day one of the first one that he did with us.”
Radcliffe continued by expressing his praise for Yates, whose other films include BBC TV work like the Emmy-nominated The Girl In The Café.
“I have nothing but great things to say about David,” he says of him, “We get closer every year. We get on very, very well off set. We have a very, very good relationship, not only professionally, but personally as well. I think as we go on in the films we become more in tune with each other to the point where he can say cut and I will immediately know without having to see or ear, I will know whether what I've just done is what he wanted simply because I know what he's looking for in a performance.”
“I think I do,” Daniel continues, “I can't always get there, but he's always very good at being honest with me as well and just saying to me, 'You can be better than that.' That's a wonderful thing to have, that kind of trust and a relationship with a director.”
Another person Daniel speaks highly of is actor Tom Felton, who plays Potter’s rival Draco Malfoy.
“I think for Tom to come in on this film having, if we're honest, not been asked to do a great deal in the last years, to come in and give the performance that he gives in the sixth one is remarkable and fantastic,” he believes.
Daniel also believes that another crucial element to the progression of the film franchise is original author J.K. Rowling’s mostly hands-off approach.
“She's always been very, very good at kind of letting go of the films and realizing that they're totally separate entities from the books,” he says, “So she's not been too precious about anything. She realizes that things have to be cut in order to make them viewable. So she's always been very good and when she comes out to the set it's a pleasure. It's a rare treat because I don't think she wants us to feel that she's come kind of prying. She's always been wonderful and is an incredibly gracious and lovely woman.”
“Just for the record,” Radcliffe adds, “It might be interesting to note that the only thing thus far, in six films, that has been onscreen which is not in the books that she said, 'I wish I thought of that –' was an idea that Alfonso Cuaron had on the third 'Potter' film to make the temperature drop when the dementos came by so that you would see the water freeze over. That's the only thing that she's gone, 'Oh, God. I wish I thought of that.' Just a little bit of 'Potter' trivia for you.”
However, while Radcliffe is proud of the work he’s brought to the titular character, he says he would never look back and watch himself in any of the previous films in the Harry Potter series.
“I haven't watched any of the films after they've been done,” Daniel says, “I think it would be an entirely destructive experience for me if I was to actually watch. I would be far too critical. I remember we had a conversation on the fourth film and I said to them, something like, 'God, I can't believe it. I saw a clip from the first film. I can't believe how bad I was –' or whatever.”
“I think I said something to the effect of, 'Why on earth did they cast me?'” he continues, “The only reason that I remember it was the fourth one where we had this conversation is because Mike Newell's massively booming voice came from the other side of the set and I had to lean to back and heard, 'Because you were absolutely bloody charming!' (Laughs) But to your original question, no. I don't watch the older movies.”
The long journey that has been the Harry Potter is on the verge of finally reaching its end for the young actor with the final films in the series, the two-part Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. While Daniel admits he’s ready to leave Harry Potter behind upon its completion, he contends he’s still plenty excited for what will be planned for the final films.
“I couldn't be happier, personally,” Radcliffe exclaims, “I'm so excited about the seventh film. I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience as me over the last couple of days, but seeing the sixth film again we are doing something very, very different. We're not Hogwarts. The difference that makes is extraordinary. For me it hadn't until this week when everyone seems to be telling me that it's almost over. I was actually getting along quite nicely until people started saying, 'So, well, you're dream is coming to an end.'”
“To be honest, I think speak for most of us when I say that we've got a year left on seven,” he adds, “It's a long way to go. Then we have to do a lot of publicity and meet up with all of you lovely people twice more. That sounded sarcastic. It wasn't. So there's a long way to go, certainly for us, and so I'm not concentrating on that too much too soon.”
However, Radcliffe says he’s never been worried about matching up to Rowling’s original literary interpretation of her character.
“My reading of the books was always like, 'God. Another one of us is dead. Another death scene. Oh, God,'” Daniel says, “I always would be very much able to enjoy them when they came out, but I would also get nervous when I read them about whether I would be able to do justice to certain aspects of them which is probably not the healthiest mindset to be in when you read them. I couldn't help it.”
One thing though is for certain on Daniel’s mind, he definitely wants to keep on acting after the Harry Potter film franchise comes to an end.
“I think certainly from my point of view I definitely want to go on acting for as long as I can for employment,” he says, “To be honest, I'm never happier than when I'm on a film set. That's a long way to tell you that I want to keep working.”
With this, we wondered whether or not Radcliffe will return to the stage after his transatlantic acclaim on both the West End and Broadway with the play Equus.
“Nothing specific, no,” Daniel replies, “Nothing specific at all. I would love to be back on the stage sometime in the next two or three years, but there's nothing planned at all. I would love to in England and if Broadway would have me back then that would be incredible cause I had an amazing time here.
