HomeENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Taking a stage role in Equus was a great step toward breaking away from the Potter movies. How did that come about?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Originally Ken Branagh had asked me. We sort of were very keen to get together and do something.
You met him through doing the second Potter film, Chamber of Secrets, right? Where he played Gilderoy Lockhart, the vain Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Yes. That was how that sort of evolved. He's always looked out for me. What's amazed me is that he's never actually had a responsibility towards me, but he's sort of always seemed to feel that he does have a responsibility towards me...I mean, he was always trying to work out these plays. At one point we were going to do The Browning Version, by Terence Rattigan. Ken also got me into his play, The Play What I Wrote, as a guest star. I think I did three performances of that, in London. So he was always very, very kind.
And then you were going to do Equus with him directing?
We got together, me and a number of other actors, and Ken Branagh as director, to do a two-day workshop, at the end of which time we would put on a sort of ramshackle little performance for [Equus author] Peter Shaffer, to see if he would sort of give the rights. Then it eventually happened that Ken was no longer going to direct it, and it became Thea Sharrock, who was artistic director at the Gate Theatre. She's done just an obscene amount of work for a 29-year-old, it's incredible.
What was it like acting onstage with live audiences of strangers, instead of just on a set with cast and crew that know you?
There are a lot of people coming to Equus who are coming to the theatre for the first time, which is great. But some people don't know how to behave. One night a kid sat there in the front row, about 12 years old. Texting, whole way through the play. Put it away and watch! Slightly ironic, considering the play is about alienation.
Do some people come expecting a Potter-ish affair and wind up shocked by the play, which is quite serious and adult?
Some audiences react in inappropriate ways. We've had a couple of very odd laughs. After a certain point, there's nothing funny about the action. And a couple of people have laughed. And I've thought, If you're laughing now, you're not seeing where this is going. Not to tar a whole audience with that brush, but when there are a couple of them laughing, you just think, Really?
But sometimes people laugh out of discomfort.
That is very true. And I'm sure we've had a bit of that in this play! [Laughs] We did have one night where [my costar] Richard Griffiths' agent, Simon — he's just a lovely man — he was sitting next to six or seven born-again Christians, who were there the whole time just absolutely terrified. Just didn't know what to think, which I found very funny.
The publicity photos for the play were extremely provocative, and spread all over the Internet as soon as they were released. What was it like shooting them?
I remember being a little bit hyper that day. At that point, we'd just done the nude scene in rehearsals [for the first time]. And I was basically wanting to get my kit off as much as I possibly could, to try and get used to the idea, and in front of as many strangers as I could. I'd be like, ''Ready now? Is this where I take them off?'' And they'd be like, ''Dan! Hold back! Wait! Just give us 10 minutes, please!''
Does seeing a live audience out there staring at you ever feel unnerving?
The actors can't really see anybody in the audience at the theatre. When you've got very, very bright lights aimed at you, everything beyond them is dark. And the show is all cross-lit. Richard [Griffiths] would often say, ''Well, there might have been other people on stage tonight, but I wouldn't know if I couldn't hear them.'' Almost all of his scenes are played across the stage, and so he just sits there not really being able to see the person he's talking to. Richard is the best actor around in terms of listening.... He listens for any sort of sound, any bit of communication. He's amazing. If you change the way you say a line, he will instantly pick up on that, and run with it. Having been on stage with him, I can do the same now, in that if he changes something, I can just change the way I do it, the next time. That's the main thing I've learnt from Equus, I'd say, is how to listen onstage, and how to just wait, give yourself time, and think before you say the line.
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