"...somewhere where no one was asking me for anything.”
October 3, 2013 7:34 AM   Subscribe

Daniel Radcliffe’s Next Trick Is to Make Harry Potter Disappear (slnyt profile, via)

The episode of Inside the Actors Studio with Daniel Radcliffe can be seen here.
posted by zarq (29 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
I often wonder why star actors date and marry other star actors. This profile at least helps me understand why Radcliffe might want to date and marry another actor. Nice read.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:43 AM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's always sad when you find out that somebody you otherwise find appealing smokes.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:51 AM on October 3, 2013 [12 favorites]


I saw the New York run of Equus - I was going for the play itself, however, which I'd read at age twelve and loved, and had thus had very high standards for. I'd seen about three productions since reading it and none of them ever measured up to what had been in my head.

And the New York run didn't really do it either - however, Daniel Radcliffe fucking nailed it as Alan Strang. I've seen another couple plays where omigod famous person is in the lead, and with them there was always an initial couple seconds where I'd been thinking omigod it's that guy when they first came in - Patrick Stewart in his one-man Christmas Carol, Liam Neeson in Judas Kiss, Dustin Hoffman in Merchant of Venice - but that didn't happen in this case. Dan simply was Alan Strang from the very moment he set foot upon that stage.

And that's when I realized that "okay, yeah, this guy's gonna do okay after the Harry Potter movies are over." The fan craziness is nightmarish, yeah, but he's got a good support system in his parents (I could always tell that from interviews), and the omigodharrypotter will wear off after a few years.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:55 AM on October 3, 2013 [4 favorites]


Great profile. I'm pretty close to Dan in age and background, so I've always felt this weird mixture of kinship and protectiveness for him. It's affirming to know he's as nice a bloke as he's always seemed.

Here's an obligatory link to his excellent bit in season two of Extras.
posted by fight or flight at 7:56 AM on October 3, 2013 [3 favorites]


LastOfHisKind: It's always sad when you find out that somebody you otherwise find appealing smokes.

It's true, but I still feel like I would really like to hang out with him. He just seems very, I don't know, interesting? I mean, NFL, Jeopardy! and Diet Coke? It's like we are already friends.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:57 AM on October 3, 2013


He really has matured remarkably well, considering the staggering, distorting pressures he endured through half his childhood. I hope he allows himself some extended time off at some point.
posted by Iridic at 8:06 AM on October 3, 2013 [6 favorites]


See also: Rupert Grint, Ice Cream Man.
posted by kmz at 8:11 AM on October 3, 2013 [7 favorites]


Rupert Grint is awesome.

The other fellow is also good.
posted by Mister_A at 8:27 AM on October 3, 2013


Yer' a wizard, Danny.
posted by Artw at 9:08 AM on October 3, 2013 [2 favorites]


In the show, Radcliffe plays a young, morphine-addicted doctor who often appears alongside an older version of himself, played by Jon Hamm.

That's actually a surprisingly deft bit of casting.
posted by The Bellman at 9:26 AM on October 3, 2013 [2 favorites]


"You like Pavement?” he said. “A lot of sound guys like Pavement.”

“Don’t do that,” the technician deadpanned. “You’ve worked with other sound guys?”


Can someone explain this bit to me?
posted by rebent at 9:53 AM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


" “The Master and Margarita,” Bulgakov’s best-known book, is one of Radcliffe’s favorite novels — on his 21st birthday, he treated himself to a trip to Moscow to visit the author’s onetime home. "

I think he's gonna be okay.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:53 AM on October 3, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'd have liked have seen him play Freddie Mercury. (And at least he now no longer supports the Lib Dems)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:06 AM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


rebent: Can someone explain this bit to me?

The sound guy is acting like a jealous lover.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:07 AM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


this article... even in his private life, he is entertaining the masses. I don't think someone could have written a fake article about a fake person that would have touched me as deeply as this real article about a real person has.
posted by rebent at 10:33 AM on October 3, 2013


Excellent for Radcliffe, I really hope it works out for him. Sean Connery managed to live down being the first (and best) (fuller ducks and covers) Bond and have a first-rank career as Not-Bond but he was at least not an almost-kid when he decided to try it. The list of actors and actresses who have had mega-success with an early role and have then gone on to have big careers as not-early-successful-role is pretty short. Reaching back to the very beginning of the squeeeeeeeee!!! era, the only way Fess Parker managed to quit being Davy Crockett was to quit being an actor altogether.
posted by jfuller at 1:14 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


Iridic: "He really has matured remarkably well, considering the staggering, distorting pressures he endured through half his childhood. I hope he allows himself some extended time off at some point."

Seems like pretty convincing proof that it's not the crush of early celebrity that damages child actors, but how they are handled by the adults around them.

All three major star children from Harry Potter: doing OK, not seriously embarrassing themselves in public, and two are clearly having successful careers that require neither trading on the HP typecasting, nor titillation.

Almost every Disney & MGM child star: fucked over.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:36 PM on October 3, 2013 [5 favorites]


> I often wonder why star actors date and marry other star actors.

Does this need explaining? I always figured it was because, like, you date who you know. And who stars know is other stars. If outsiders are going to break into the charmed circle (Prince Rainier of Monaco marries Grace Kelly, Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller marry Norma Jeane Mortenson) (not at once) they're going to have to be something special in their own sphere and then bestir themselves and go pounce on a star.


> Almost every Disney & MGM child star: fucked over.

Annette, the first mega-Mouseketeer, wasn't. But like Parker she did it by leaving Disney (and Hollywood).
posted by jfuller at 2:09 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


IAmBroom: Almost every Disney & MGM child star: fucked over.

Among the more recent Disney Teen Stars, Selena Gomez seems to be managing the transition to adulthood pretty smoothly, but I guess it is still early days. Maybe it helps that she seems to be abandoning acting for the music biz so far?
posted by Rock Steady at 2:41 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's always sad when you find out that somebody you otherwise find appealing smokes.

I feel the same way about people who drive cars and eat salt. So sad.
posted by Brocktoon at 5:19 PM on October 3, 2013 [5 favorites]


Miley Cyrus seemed (to me) to be doing the transition relatively well until about 8 months ago.
posted by maryr at 6:23 PM on October 3, 2013


It's always sad when you find out that somebody you otherwise find appealing smokes.

Considering the descriptions of what he goes through at these events, I would be astonished to learn he didn't smoke. I'm mildly surprised he isn't on smack.
posted by rifflesby at 8:13 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hey, I have the perfect project for him!
posted by Artw at 8:22 PM on October 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hmmm, a hyper verbal, prone to early adulthood blackout drinking, musical theatre geek who struggles with latent smoking habits and perfectionist/workaholic tendencies with a child acting background?

Huh, there but for the grace of casting directors.
posted by The Whelk at 5:01 AM on October 4, 2013


fight or flight: "Great profile. I'm pretty close to Dan in age and background, so I've always felt this weird mixture of kinship and protectiveness for him. It's affirming to know he's as nice a bloke as he's always seemed."

Ahh, me too! I'm his age and for a long time I was slightly jealous of him for being so much more successful than me (the NERVE!) but then I saw interviews and he seems like a really bright, friendly, put together guy.

Daniel Radcliffe on Craig Ferguson
Daniel Radcliffe on the British panel show QI ("Hocus Pocus")

Plus, dude is totally teacher's pet on that episode of QI. He seems to know his trivia.
posted by yaymukund at 9:52 AM on October 4, 2013


I find myself totally charmed by grown-up Daniel Radcliffe. How cute is this? Or this?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:03 AM on October 5, 2013


His fantasy football team is called "Barkevious Mingo's Mum". Fucking adorable.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:46 AM on October 8, 2013


He's the guest on the latest Nerdist Podcast. I was listening to it on the way to work this morning and a couple people were looking at me funny because of my grins and stifled giggles; it's a heady mix of "oh he's just adorable" and "he's got a more twisted sense of humor than I thought".

I think my favorite couple of moments from the Actors Studio episode linked above are - after James Lipton gets done with the Pivot questionnaire and turns the questions over to the audience, he gets up and leaves the stage. Daniel clearly did not expect that, and is visibly a bit....thrown.

Earlier in the episode, though, there's another moment when they're talking about a fairly intense love scene he did in a 2011 film, and Lipton joked that the media response to it was pretty much "Harry Potter gets laid" - but then goes on to ask whether Daniel was himself "a bit more sophisticated" by that time. And Daniel does say "yeah," and looks like he's about to elaborate, but then he and James Lipton trade this look, and you can tell they're thinking, "yeah, we probably really shouldn't go there," and change the subject with a nigh-audible gear shift.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:07 AM on October 15, 2013 [1 favorite]




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