He is Harry Potter to millions of fans but the 'annoyingly sensible' Daniel Radcliffe is taking on edgy roles in an attempt to leave his past behind. 'I want to make a career and take it seriously,' he tells Donald Clarke
Daniel Radcliffe, the youth who gave Harry Potter breath, is explaining why he chose December Boys, a low-budget drama from Australia, as his first Wizard-free picture. "Well, we always wanted to do something between Harry Potter4 and 5," he explains. "And we always aimed for a role that was as different as possible from Harry for my first part outside the series."
Who's this "we" he keeps talking about? Radcliffe turned 18 in July, but, unusually for a grown actor, he still has a publicity handler in the room during interviews. From time to time, he will turn to the scribbling official - who, to be fair, never intrudes in the conversation - and ask for clarification on a date or some other detail. He may be an adult, but he is not yet on his own.
Daniel Radcliffe, short, polite and agreeably chatty, is, of course, a very valuable resource to Warner Brothers Pictures. Since the release of the first Potter film six years ago, the franchise, adapted from J K Rowling's unavoidable novels, has gone on to vacuum up somewhere in the region of $4.5 billion (€3.31 billion) at the world's box-offices. If Radcliffe were to suddenly start smoking crack in an interview he might precipitate the collapse of an entire industry.
Such misbehaviour does, to be fair, seem terribly unlikely.
Radcliffe - a kind of Anti-Lindsay Lohan - has progressed through the opening years of his career without attracting a single negative headline. He has never been seen punching a doorman. He has avoided being designated a love rat. How on earth has he managed it?
"I don't think there is a trick to it," he says. "I think you just have to be careful. If you want to have a drink you do it with friends rather than people who are going to sell you out. I had an interview a while ago with Heat magazine - a really nice woman - and she said: 'Do you have a girlfriend?' At the moment that is not the case. She then said: 'What's your longest relationship?' I explained that I had gone out with somebody for about a year and she said: 'Oh, you kept that quiet.' Well, that's the point. That's why they call it a private life."
Radcliffe, who made his debut in a 1999 BBC adaptation of David Copperfield, has profited from the support of careful, sober parents. Alan Radcliffe, a literary agent, and Marcia Gresham, a casting agent, turned down the studio's initial approach to their son because, at that stage, all seven Potter films were to be shot in Hollywood rather than England. "They felt that would be too much of a disruption," he says. When the second, more attractive offer came, the Radcliffes seem to have responded with middle-class sangfroid.
"There was no family meeting as I remember it," he says. "When they said they'd like me to do it, it was, of course, a cause for celebration. We have had serious conversations along the way. My parents explained that I had to be prepared to be fit and healthy. I had to look after myself. After all, every 15 minutes on set costs about $15,000. And, in what is now seven years of Potter, I have missed just two days through illness."
IS DANIEL RADCLIFFE too good to be true? Personable and well mannered - "Please, call me Dan" - he seems to have done an extraordinarily good job of remaining sane while moving through some very unsettling territory. A glance at the internet confirms that the world is full of lunatics who, even before the actor encountered puberty, have fantasised about doing the most unsettling things to his wand. Has the attention ever frightened him?
"No. Not really. I have been scared for them sometimes, but not so much for myself." He turns to his chaperone.
"Do you remember 'Mrs Radcliffe'?" She smiles.
"There was this girl who used to hold up a sign saying 'I am the next Mrs Radcliffe'. I was in this limo in New York - these totally conspicuous things. We pulled up at a stoplight and a car pulled up next to us. Suddenly she leant out the window of her car and tried to get in the front window of ours. She was straddling the street and we were shouting: 'Get back in!' Now, that was dangerous for her, but not for us. We were quite safe."
Radcliffe's role in Extras, Ricky Gervais's fine comedy series, feels like a commentary on the young actor's image as a balanced, decent guy. The "Daniel Radcliffe" of that very funny episode smokes, swears, chats up older women and, in one particularly memorable scene, flicks a condom on to Dame Diana Rigg's outraged head. There must have been at least one point in his career when he found himself acting like an arrogant twit. He is a teenager after all.
"I would hope not," he says. "I would have to say that honestly I don't see myself in that character. I have always been around people who are very honest with me. I say: 'If I ever do anything out of line then please tell me.' I remember thinking, while doing Extras, I wish I had the blind confidence to act this badly. I would like to be that lascivious with the girls and just not care. But I would never have that confidence."
Despite all his money and fame, Radcliffe does, indeed, not seem like an overly confident or forthright fellow. When talking about his recent 18th birthday he reveals a surprising self-consciousness about becoming a grown-up. He seems to suggest he sees adulthood as another role he has to play. Other fellows, once in control of their own chequebooks, would race down to the Maserati showroom. Not Dan.
"Is a Maserati a car? No, I'm not really a car person," he says. "I do remember, after I turned 18, I looked at myself and thought: now how do I grow up? I am now regarded by the state as an adult. So how do I now act like one?" That sort of thing is supposed to come naturally. "Well, yes. I looked at my friends and they all look like adults, so maybe I look that way to them."
DECEMBER BOYS, WHICH was filmed two years ago, marks an early step on Radcliffe's passage into adulthood. Based on a popular Australian novel by Michael Noonan, Rod Hardy's film follows four orphans during a blissful holiday by the sea in the 1960s. Though pretty enough, the film was shot on a modest budget. The experience must have offered a jarring contrast to the business of making one of those noisy Potter behemoths.
"Oh there was about $200 million difference in the budget," he laughs. "In many ways it's the same job, though. You have the same departments doing the same jobs. Everyone is trying to make the best film. It's a very communal experience.
"I suppose the main difference is the size of the crew. We did this film in six weeks. On Potter it would take the length of the film to learn everyone's name. Here you could do that in a day."
Shortly after finishing December Boys, Radcliffe was approached with the notion of appearing as Alan Strang, a disturbed boy who blinds horses, in a West End revival of Peter Shaffer's Equus. There were risks - critics greatly enjoy laying into movie stars who stray into theatre and, with its nudity and simulated sex, the role was bound to generate a great deal of prurient tabloid attention. Any failure would be of the most public sort. As it happened, though some reviewers found the play dated, Radcliffe himself received excellent notices. He must have been greatly relieved.
"Oh yeah. The difference with me - and this is not an accusation at any movie star - was that a lot of film actors just walk on stage and think they can do it, but I knew it was a different discipline and was aware I needed a particular technical ability. I trained for months. Once the critics realised I had worked at my voice, I think they accepted I was showing some respect."
His taking on that role - with its adult themes and situations - looked somewhat like a public declaration of intent: I am determined to thrive as a proper actor.
"I suppose that was the intention," he agrees. "It was declaration of intent in terms that I wanted to let everybody know I was not content to coast along on Harry Potter. I wanted to make a career and take it seriously. It wasn't a way of distancing myself from Harry Potter, though. I was just saying: I am an actor and I want to do a lot of different jobs."
In November, Radcliffe appears as Rudyard Kipling's son, whose death in the first World War devastated the writer, in ITV's My Boy Jack, a television film shot in Ireland. Then he embarks on the penultimate Harry Potter picture. In 2010, when the film of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows makes its way on to screens, a massive, overwhelming episode in Radcliffe's career will be at a close. It must be a daunting thought.
"Hopefully, I will just carry on acting," he says. "I want to do lots of different things and carry on working. In terms of my fears, Harry Potter was a lovely comfort zone. Shooting My Boy Jack, I was nervous, because, unusually, I didn't know anybody on the set. But as time moves on I will know more people."
Does he think he'll figure out how to be an adult soon? "I don't know. I suppose I'll just have to wait for that to come." What an annoyingly sensible fellow.
December Boys is on general release