HomeENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you ever think, early on, that you'd ride out the entire seven-movie cycle?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I was never sure I was going to do any of the [later] films, other than signing on for the first and second. After that, it was always going to be: We'll take it one film at a time.
Now you're indelibly connected to the character of Harry. What's it been like becoming so famous, and being the object of so much attention from fans around the world?
It is a very odd thing. People assume that a modern celebrity is always gonna be very cool. And I'm just not. I'm not a particularly cool person. I don't have any urge to be cool, because I find people who are cool in that sort of posey way incredibly dull. I don't want to be like that. So, I always get very worried when I meet people. I'm scared I'm going to disillusion them. They're probably expecting some person in shades with a huge car.
It amazes me how you've been embraced in so many different movie markets around the world, and of course you always look the same. In the books, illustrators in different countries have all had different ideas of how Harry looks, don't they?
It's interesting. Harry Potter's like Jesus in that way. [Pauses] Oh, God! No, okay, no, um.... [Laughs nervously] God, that's a real Beatles moment, isn't it? My point is that Jesus is different in different countries. Like when Christianity was trying to be spread in Africa, all the depictions of Jesus were as a black man. In England, he's a white man, and that's how everyone views him. Of course, he wasn't. He was from the Middle East, he was from Israel, y'know, and would've looked Israeli. And so, it adjusts. The same does happen, I think the world over, for Harry Potter. He does change his appearance from country to country. Obviously he's always going to have the black hair, the scar, the glasses. But each country makes that its own.
Well, you're such a modest fellow, you immediately blanched at having compared Harry Potter to Jesus. But the comparison is apt. Harry is treated like a messianic figure in the books, and part of what the narrative's about is Harry coping with the exalted way other people see him.
To me, the books are mainly about a loss of innocence. He is on a mission in some way, and he is striving to do good. But he feels his goodness being taken away from him, as he becomes more like Voldemort.
Harry also loses every guardian he gets, which is part of that classic journey toward casting off adult authority figures and becoming your own, self-sufficient person.
I think Harry realizes he's [ultimately] going to be on his own from about the third film in.
You had a new director on Order of the Phoenix, David Yates. What's he like?
He's very quiet. You'll have to move this [the tape recorder] a little closer to him, I think. And he's very docile. But he's got this incredibly filmic imagination. He knows exactly what he wants out of every scene.
I've heard from the Phoenix crew that you really loved hanging out with Gary Oldman, who's back playing Sirius Black, Harry's godfather.
Gary Oldman gave me a great piece of advice once about acting. Which was, ''Don't be afraid to use your own emotions and your own sadnesses.'' Because even if you're using your own thoughts, you've got the glasses on. You've got the scar on. People will see Harry. They'll see Harry being sad, rather than Dan acting Harry being sad. I think that's a very, very good observation.
You quite admire Gary, don't you?
I think he's the finest actor of his generation, really. He'll hate me saying that.
Get out! Why?
I know I certainly don't feel completely comfortable when people are complimenting me. I don't know if he does, I'm not sure. But I'd hate it if somebody said that about me. I'm just crap at taking compliments. I sort of stand there and look at the floor.
Evanna Lynch plays a new character in Phoenix, Luna Lovegood. She's never acted before this, of course, and she talked to me about how weird it was meeting you in person having watched you so many times onscreen in the movies.
She's a huge fan. But she got on set and knew her lines, and she was really focused. It was bizarre because I sort of had to watch my mouth around her. If I'd ever say something about Potter that was sort of incorrect, she would leap on it.
Like what?
Oh, any sort of little detail about something, like, maybe if we were talking about family trees, who was in the Sirius Black family tree or something like that. If I said something wrong or I got a name wrong, she would hone in on it, because she knows it all.
A lot of people go a bit crazy when they see their favorite actors.
At the premieres it does get a bit mad and scary. I don't think that's cause of me particularly. It's because of Harry Potter. The whole thing is so massive that people lose sight of things slightly, when they're confronted by an actual person who is in one of the films.
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