Life for Radcliffe now the magic's gone (From The Northern Echo)

Life for Radcliffe now the magic's gone

5:15pm Thursday 16th February 2012 in Entertainment By Steve Craggs

HALLOWEEN, says Daniel Radcliffe, is his favourite day of the year. “Because I can put a mask on and it’s the most surreal feeling to walk around with my head up unafraid, and just look in people’s eyes. It’s very bizarre,” he says.

He’s giving a snapshot of what it’s like being Harry Potter. He was cast as the boy wizard when he was ten and now, 12 Harry-filled years later, he’s going out into the big wide world as Dan rather than Harry.

Those of us who’ve seen him grow up, from the first Harry Potter press conference to his latest non-Hogwarts film The Woman In Black, have witnessed his abundance of energy and enthusiasm for the work.

He’s been schooled in the art of dealing with fame and celebrity – and learnt well, never dodging questions and answering even the most intrusive honestly. There was a self-confessed bout of heavy drinking (done in private, not in the lens of the paparazzi), but otherwise he’s emerged from the world of Potter as a well-adjusted (and very wealthy) young man.

He’s learnt how to deal with being recognised.

It’s a fun thing, he says, to watch him walking through a crowded street, particularly if he’s with his girlfriend.

“It does look like she’s my carer because I basically keep my head to the ground and follow her feet. The only time – the time you get recognised every time – is if you make eye contact,”

he explains. “I have fairly distinctive eyes, I am told, so if you make eye contact you’re done for.

So keep your head down and follow the other person’s feet is my advice.”

He’s similarly sensible about the adoration of female fans which is “fantastically flattering”, he says. “I don’t see it myself but I’m more than happy if that’s how girls want to see me. I certainly won’t be complaining or doing anything to dissuade their illusions.”

Quite the opposite – he’ll make sure they have a good time. Like the girl who visited his dressing room on Broadway while he was starring in the musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.

Her father was with him. “He was clearly not a Potter fan, barely knew who I was, thinking why is my daughter getting so excited, what’s wrong with her?” recalls Radcliffe.

“She started freaking out and there’s a moment early on in that situation where you have to address it and say, ‘Really don’t cry, there’s nothing to cry about’. Otherwise she will spend the next ten minutes crying.

“I had a heartbreaking thing said to me once by a fan I’d met at a couple of premieres. The second time she said she was so nervous meeting me the first time because she was so worried she’d do something embarrassing.

“That could be the only interaction they have with you and if they end up crying, they’ll walk away feeling like they missed an opportunity.

So it’s always good to calm them down so they enjoy the conversation.”

This isn’t about being honest, just “being a nice human being”. The only time he gets annoyed is when people take pictures without asking.

He tells of being in a New York restaurant with his girlfriend when a girl sitting two tables away took a picture with her camera phone.

“She didn’t even look, she carried on talking to her girlfriend and clicked and this huge flash from two tables away came up. I waited until the end of the meal, getting angrier and angrier. I went up to them and said, ‘If you’d asked it would have been fine but what you did was rude, just for future reference’.”

Now, an angry Radcliffe is hardly the Incredible Hulk but who can blame him for being furious at such behaviour. His career seems as well thought-out as his reaction to fans but he doesn’t see it like that.

He’s made a couple of other films during the Potter years as well as stripping on stage in a revival of Equus in London and the US. His first post-Potter film is The Woman In Black, a film version of Susan Hill’s ghost story that’s already enjoyed success on stage, TV and radio.

“I don’t think it’s ever as strategic as people think,” he says of his career choices. “Obviously you have an idea of what you want to do – or certainly, what you don’t want to do next.”

HE read The Woman In Black script on the last day of filming Potter and loved it, although horror wasn’t an area he’d shown a previous personal interest in. He plays a young solicitor sent to a remote house to go through the deceased owner’s papers who finds himself tormented by ghosts and the murder of the village’s children.

His character is a widower and father. Certainly different to the schoolboy wizard and to the weirdest offer he’s had – to play a karatekicking Cowardly Lion in a remake of The Wizard Of Oz, with Potter co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson co-starring. “The main thing for me with The Woman In Black was the energy level of the character being different from my own. Harry is someone where my own natural energy and attack is very useful,” he says.

“In this film, Arthur is someone who has been stripped of his own vitality and zeal by the tragic circumstances of his wife’s death. So playing someone who’s become detached from the world and people was a challenge.

“And playing a father was something I was looking forward to and a little nervous about, because of people buying into that having seen me in a schoolboy’s outfit for ten years.”

His own young godson, Misha Handley, plays his screen son. “I thought it would be useful for me to have him rather than try to form a relationship and chemistry with a child I’ve just met. Misha has known me all his life,” he says.

“I made it like we were playing this game. I felt slightly awful on his first day. I was excited to have him on the film but his first day was a night shoot, and it was cold and horrible on this train track. He’s only this little five-year-old and suddenly 9.30pm rolls round, which is later than he’s ever been up. But he was a trooper and very, very sweet.”

And as a child actor, Misha couldn’t have had a better teacher than Daniel Radcliffe, someone who’s grown up on camera.

• The Woman In Black (12A) is now showing in cinemas.