For more than a decade, Daniel Radcliffe embodied the world’s mightiest, most magical wizard in the 'Harry Potter movies,' whose final installment last year established it as one of the highest-grossing film series of all-time. This year, the 22-year-old Brit travels back in time to Victorian-Era Britain, where he battles a malevolent ghost in 'The Woman In Black.' Herein lies the unconventional megastar channeling an altogether different spirit: the All-American heartthrob.
Daniel Radcliffe seems preoccupied when he enters the Hudson Diner, an unassuming bistro in Manhattan’s West Village. Visibly frustrated, he heads straight to an empty table, where he fidgets with his iPhone. “Sorry about that,” he says, emerging from his tech-coma. “I sent an e-mail and it didn’t go through, and I just got so angry! A hundred years ago, the person I was e-mailing would have needed to wait two years to get the message and now I’m [annoyed] because it didn’t go through the moment I sent it. It’s so stupid.” At 5’5”, the 22-year-old English actor cuts a dashing silhouette of compact physical strength.
“I hadn’t thought that I’d be sad at all when it came to finishing the [Harry Potter] films, but then it happened and I was weeping,” he says of his farewell to the character with whom he’s become synonymous. “When you’re doing something for that long with the same people, you kind of start thinking, God, can I do anything else?”
“I kept saying to people, What am I going to do now? But soon after, I was on a plane reading the script for The Woman in Black,” he says of his new film, a supernatural thriller set in Victorian Britain. “I moved on very quickly.”
“I really like working with young, hungry, ambitious directors like James [Watkins, director of The Woman in Black, whose only other credit is 2008’s psychological thriller Eden Lake]. He’s got a head full of ideas and he’s made a great film.”
Radcliffe’s real-life godson, Misha Handley, plays his son in the film, a casting choice that allowed the director to capture some authentic chemistry between Radcliffe and the young boy. “You’re not really talking about ‘acting’ with a kid that young,” Radcliffe says. “You’ve got to have a real relationship with him, and that comes across on the screen. It was a help to me as well.” Not only does he want to continue to work with children—he’d like to have them. “To be honest, I’m kind of the broodiest young man in the world. I want kids. They’re just so much more honest and funnier than anyone else. And we watch the same TV.”
Due to the demanding schedule of the Potter films, Radcliffe often worked with on-set tutors, trading classrooms for private one-on-one discussions about culture and politics. “It kind of takes you back to a purer form of learning, when it was one student who hasn’t got 20 other people to deal with,” he says. “If we talked about something that we found interesting, then we could go off on a tangent and learn about that for a while—it was a lovely way of learning where curiosity was instilled rather than fear, like, I have to learn this to pass the test.” His education wasn’t limited to coursework; it bled into trailer tutorials with fellow artists and technicians.
“In America, you are treated as an actor first and a child second, but it’s so important that kids remain kids. Had I come over here, I think I would have been different.” He describes the adultification of today’s children as “tragic—the fact that kids want to wear designer labels? I didn’t [care] about that. My parents were just trying to get me to not eat insects when I was 9. I didn’t know what AllSaints was. When did kids stop eating mud? The whole point of being a kid is that you get to do [stuff] you can’t do when you’re an adult. It’s downhill from here. I’m 22 now and I realize that my best years are behind me.”
Since his move to New York, Radcliffe has led a quiet life in the West Village, dating under the radar and focusing on work—a privilege he feels actors in similar situations might not have. “Look at all the comments that came out of the Twilight films,” he says. “I can’t remember their exact words and I am not going to try to quote them, because if I misquote them, Twilight fans will kill me. But the point is, those kids are kind of ready to be done with it. [Harry Potter] went on for 10 years and we had a great time. I loved every second, and I learned so much.”
Given the commitment that Radcliffe has made to his craft, it’s easy to assume that he’d be adverse to similar commitment in his personal life. Such an assumption, he insists, would be wrong. “I love the notion that you can meet somebody when you’re young and stay with her forever,” he says. “My mom is the only girlfriend my dad has ever had. I look at them and I see how they’ve built their own mythology together. That’s what I want, to build a universe with someone. Everything that happens prior to finding that one person is kind of [rubbish]. You’ve got to find somebody who you love and who loves you, and then cling onto them.” He insists that monogamy with the right partner can be very exciting. “I have such a nice, happy life now,” he says. “I don’t go out all that often, especially to bars and clubs, just because it’s no longer as much fun for me. I like to stay at home with my girlfriend. We have a lovely time just with each other.”
No comments:
Post a Comment