Daniel Radcliffe Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

my mom and dad were really good at like asking me every year are you still enjoying it do you still want to do this you're like what am I going to do go back to school like that's not as fun as this Harry Potter who are you rubius Hagrid keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts of course you don't know all about Hogwarts sorry no no blow me Harry didn't you ever wonder where your mom and dad learned at all want more you're a wizard Harry you know I've read I think the first two books I was not a big reader so uh so I was not as into it as like a lot of my friends were I don't think I was like thinking particularly deeply about the characters or acting when I was that age the people I really admired were the people that like didn't mystify acting too much who were just able to like come to set and do it Imelda Staunton David thulis Gary Oldman Michael Gambon they're all people that can be very normal and chatting away and then can just turn it on on action they're people that particularly Imelda was one of the people that I always just looked at and went like you're so good and it's so effortless because she will be just chatting away to everyone and having a nice life and day and then able to give an incredibly terrifying or intense performance you deserve to be funny don't you Mr Potter Michael Gammon could do that to a frustrating degree he learned that he could as when I was a teenager like he can make me laugh very very easily making me laugh like right up until the word action at which point I was pretty much unable to recover and he could just like Snap into a performance with just like inherent gravitas and charm forgive my more Christmas Harry I'm an old man yeah he's awesome there is so much on Potter that was so intense and so crazy you don't even think about at the time because you're just like yeah they're building a tank where d-stage used to be they're just like building a tank and they're going to be filming underwater for six weeks I had like a log book of all the hours that I'd done underwater like it was it was really cool I've heard that we average like seven seconds of footage a day or something like of usable footage but again those are one of those things that you go like I will never do that again and if I do I'll be one of the only people who's done it before it was one of those moments that you look back and go God that's special those ones on the fourth film the whole the dragon sequence on the fourth film one shot on the sick film I think where I start off underneath the water and I was on a wire so I was holding myself uh by a rope under the surface of the water and then on action I let go and they pulled me on the wire so I flew out of the water and there was like a ring of fire around me so I was just like bursting out of the surface of the water through a ring of fire it's phenomenal that they allowed me to do that myself and like again I'll never probably be on a job where they do let me do that kind of stuff I think every director kind of came on at a point we needed them to and when we were all ready to be then taken to another you know development developmental stage of our acting I don't think anyone else could have started the series in the way that Chris did I don't think anyone else could have wrangled 30 kids and kept us all focused and happy um in the way that he did Alfonso when he came on you know we were all starting to become like more intense brooding teenagers and so he sort of came on at the right moment to capitalize on that and the same goes for Mike is like this bombastic huge character which is exactly what you needed for like the fourth film and book and then David Yates to finish them all off like I mean I really feel like particularly the fifth film was where I like learned a lot particularly from working with Gary and in scenes with Gary with David I think that's sort of where I started to get more of a handle on like what acting was what matters is the part we choose to act on that's who we really are I'm incredibly lucky to have worked with all of them but honestly the person that I think had the greatest influence on me out of all of those is Chris Columbus when Chris came back for the 20th anniversary reunion last year he came to the studios and there were people on the set who were running across set to see this director that they had not seen in 20 years and they remembered him and he remembered them and it was there are so few people in the industry that can like Inspire that in people like that you genuinely the crews of the first two part of films would have would have followed Chris Columbus into hell you know they would we just loved him uh so much and he was and I think a huge amount of his enthusiasm for like being on set um is sort of where I take mine from and the reason I think I love the job so much is is in no small part due to him Swiss army man I know I know it sounds dumb but I really thought for a moment that that maybe just maybe there was a reason that you everyone has a thing of like that's so crazy it's such a crazy idea how did you how did they convince you I was like I didn't see like it seemed like not like a normal film like it's not like you know it's obviously got some Fantastical crazy elements to it but the combination of meeting them and talking to them seeing their videos and reading the script I was like yeah I want to be involved in this and I fully didn't know what I was going to do as this character for the longest time like I had no idea what Manny was gonna be and ultimately like going to set and just sort of putting yourself in their hands because they knew exactly what they wanted it to be that was one of the truly one of the best experiences I've ever had and probably the film that I'm like proudest of how did you get so far from home I I ran away but that's it doesn't matter that's what's important is you remembering your life okay what is life oh okay when I was like practicing at home and just doing like weird Manny voices and facial expressions everything I was doing was kind of just slipping towards zombie every time I would say something or move I would be trying to communicate the fact that he is dead the lesson in that for me was having the makeup on the first time being made up to ba corpse suddenly I was like oh I looked dead I don't have to act Dead all the time because this is doing the work for me I can be this sweet little character but he'll just look like a dead sweet little character because of what else is is going on [Music] I remember Jurassic Park what you were just singing the theme song the Brachiosaurus I don't know I don't know you remember the song and he pulls one of the most incredible actors I've ever worked with he carries both the film and literally me throughout the movie I'm the one getting to go in and just do a crazy weird performance he gets to do that but also has to like be the the engine of the film and the the Beating Heart of it and yeah I mean he's he's incredible in that and bless him there were so many times when they had like they had made a dummy for him to carry around and there was a lot of the time I think he just like wanted the weight of the real me so he genuinely is carrying me around a lot in that movie if I get hit by lightning tomorrow or something if there's one scene that I could pick from everything I've ever done to just be the thing that like lasts after me it would be the scene on the bus from Swiss army man she sits alone just like every other day and looks out the window lost in her thoughts you know that look just as alone as you are but she doesn't have to be you could talk to her tell her you'd love to sit next to her today and every other day because life is short and no one deserves to ride the bus alone I want this to stop it's not working no she's too beautiful I can't talk to her now what if I say something stupid I just want to die bones hey egg what does it feel like to get away with murder I'm gonna comment on the fire at the lab in Tacoma last night have you heard that the police have a new witness you should ask God to save your soul for what you did just yes the devil's to punish whoever the children egg parish is the uh local guy who has been dating this girl Marin for many years she has been murdered at the beginning of the film and the entire town thinks that he has done it he's also got like a drinking problem so he can't fully account for the the knights and and he is worried that he might have had something to do with it and doesn't know what's happened and then he wakes up one morning uh with tiny tiny bumps on the side of his head which then burst through and are the beginnings of Devil's horns as they continue to grow he realizes that they have like a strange effect on people where they kind of make people give in to or admit their worst impulses and desires he sort of uses that to figure out who really killed his girlfriend but I told him that your girlfriend forgot her jacket so I followed her into the parking lot and I saw you drive back and scream that you were gonna kill her but you know that's not true and then I saw you drag her into your car and then you drove off what why the hell would you say all that because I want to be in all the newspapers and on TV I want to be the star witness at your trial you're such a crazy liar it's a very dark comedy with like very strong magical realism element to it also made by one of the most talented directors I've ever worked with Alex Azure I love that movie it's a crazy film but I so enjoyed it also a lot of snake work on that film how's it going where's that snake doing around your neck I made a new friend early on I wanted to you know try and get a reputation for being someone who wanted to try lots of different stuff obviously you want to be known as an actor who's just saying lots of different stuff rather than just a character what a specific character you know everything I do is I want it to be different from the last thing I've done and everything else I not everything I do is like a comment on Harry Potter or an attempt to distance myself from it and I think I knew at the time that was never going to be achieved by just one film like it was gonna take just building up a body of work with that had a variety in it was was going to be the thing that made that separation wasn't going to be one thing that everyone sees and goes oh he is no longer Harry Potter to us because that's that's just that's not how it works yeah that period of like horns Killy Darlings those are the first forays into like doing some other stuff Kill Your Darlings Vision declares well claims this is better proclaims the death of morality the expression of self the true uninhibited uncensored expression of the self words always empty words well what do you suggest the derangement of these senses like anything it was like a lot of a lot of accent work on that one particularly because he's a little bit more specific than my sort of generic American a lot of like research and reading and his Diaries again which are mostly later but there is a lot of stuff from early on as well I think that was the first film I shot outside the UK that's the closest thing I have to a process now which is again not much but like I I a lot of it I gained from working with John on that film and he sort of introduced me to like a lot of just ways of breaking down a script that are very practical and useful for an actor it's embarrassingly basic to actually say them but basically it's like John introduced me to the concept of like action verbs and actioning a script so like going through something and just finding a bunch of different so rather than thinking of what's going on internally in the character which can be quite a self-conscious way to work there's something about finding an action verb which you are trying to do to the other person so it's not something you're trying to do with yourself it's trying to have an effect on the other person that's why it's like embarrassing to make this like very basic acting 101 but like no one had ever explained it to me so it was nice to for John to do that you may either retract this fiction as your final or you may choose to be expelled what will it be fine consider me expelled look this remains with us I'm kind of somebody who has a general interest in history anyway so I feel like learning more about the time period And how that would have been formed and learning about like young Allen's life it was really like was fascinating you know I don't think when when you get on to set that you're really playing any of that it's just that's just sort of all useful context to absorb sort of before you go into something guns are kembo it's very hard not to be Charmed by a script where the main protagonist has guns for hands after about page 10. two scenes later it's he's like trying to go to the toilet with Guns For Hands and I was like great you've got a premise you're fully exploring it I'm probably gonna do this movie I I just loved the fact that it was like you had like a 90-minute shot out of a cannon just adrenaline ride of insane action and Samara weaving being cool and psychotic Jason created great characters and it is simply that thing of like you've had a fun idea but it's not just that you've had a fun idea you've like created a really good plot around it and you are you're fully like exploring it for comedy because like I love action films but for me to do an action film I feel like there has to be like a certain amount of physical comedy involved as well and the fact that like though this action characters like special skill is running away I was like yeah this is this is the action guy for me foreign [Music] sneakers inside so I could actually run in them so the thing was hard was putting things in Pockets but I could fully take something out of my pockets with just the gun hands they spend enough time with them and you eventually will get good and they're genuinely useful as uh shoe horns you can for that it's it's almost like they were made for it yeah that was one of the leaks that the paparazzi I think it's there's been like a couple over the years where like a picture of me in my mind clearly at work doing something will come out and there will be like a response to it of like 90 of people being like oh this looks like a crazy movie but there seems always like a fairly high percentage of people being like has Dan Radcliffe lost his mind so yeah that was that was one of them but it was great again and it all helps like the moment that that started happening I was like well people are going to be interested in this movie then you know and it is a it's a it's a great image The Lost City come with me to the island translate these symbols and help me find that the crown of Fire can name your price fully decline [Music] well I can't say I'm not disappointed but I understand how you feel will you at least let us give you a ride oh no thank you I'll call from my own car and I'll just he's not really a bad guy in this film and he's doing an insane accent so it Bears no resemblance really but Tim Curry in the movie Congo just act as when you see them having a great time playing a weird kind of a villainous of someone whose motivations are sketchy anyone like that I feel like Alan I I work with Alan a few years ago but he's also like played some fantastic villains over the years I feel like they're they're people to reference and also just a certain type of Posh English boy you know entitled slightly stupid I've met a few so that I could draw on them where am I um you're on my plane it's nice isn't it the seats are made of mama llama leather well I'm getting off your plate I'm chain me that's your seatbelt did you chloroform me people actually do that oh well you know it's a classic for a reason he thinks sonner bullet is going to love being kidnapped basically he is convinced that if she just thinks about this she will find this cool the prep for that was really just I don't know learning the lines and having as much fun as possible being horrible Cassandra Bullock honestly getting to work with her was such a thrill I grew up on the Potter films obviously working with Maggie Smith and Richard Harris but I didn't have like a inherent knowledge of who those people were like I did I hadn't watched you know a man called horse when I was a kid so I didn't know what the significance but I did very much grow up watching Sandra Bullock and stuff so yeah to get to to get to work with her was incredibly cool miracle workers striking out hard here man I've tried telling jokes to this guy I've complimented him I even told him my real name all that happened was he had a seizure oh well um yeah I don't know much about profits but I'll try and help thanks bud I appreciate it I know you must be busy well actually I'm not really that busy I don't think anyone downstairs really need me anymore oh well I need you big time okay well yeah great what's uh what's the plan hit him hard with a tornado uh what I read what in God's name which is the book that the first season of miracle workers was based on as well as the last girlfriend on Earth which became called something else uh the man seeking woman Simon is a brilliant brilliant writer incredibly funny also incredibly warm and there's a sweetness to his writing as well and yeah wrote two fantastic seasons of of miracle workers and then I was like to point out just because they're fantastic as well is that two guys called Dan murk and Robert padnick sort of show on the the last two seasons of the show in the Oregon Trail and the one we've just finished TBS have let us do one of the weirdest little shows on TV for the last few years and I will be forever grateful for it because particularly the one we've just done is uh We've really like taken some big swings in terms of like high concept weird jokes and stuff so I'm I'm very excited for people to say it yeah the fact of it was announced Technology Series I was like this is ideal I just get to come back and work with Steve buscelemy and and this group of actors and get Simon Rich's writing every year and and then Dana Roberts and yeah it's just it's a real it's a dream weird the Al Yankovic story honestly most of Al's notes to me were musical were like stuff about the the playing of the accordion or um of lyrics and songs and stuff he was very specific about that but other than that he was kind of just like gave me free reign to create my own version of him I think he's he's happy with it so I'm yeah so that's that's you know I'm delighted this was particularly quick this shoot but like Swiss army man was 20 three days Kelly Darlings was like 24 days another film I won't mention because it's really bad and you're not even gonna ask me about it so it's fine was like 16 days um I actually love working that way I think on Potter growing up you know we things took a long long time which was great in a way because it meant I've got like I can I got sort of stamina across the course of a shoot and I don't get too tired but it's also the feeling of like doing five or six scenes in a day and having achieved all of them is really really fulfilling I think if you asked our director he would probably have like I think we all would have liked like maybe a couple more on this but you know it is what it is and and you make the best of it and truly the making of This film is like a testament to to what you can do if you're prepared we draw like a Massive Action scene in like four hours at one point which is I'm very very proud of that

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: celebrity, daniel radcliffe, daniel radcliffe characters, daniel radcliffe funny, daniel radcliffe gq, daniel radcliffe gq iconic characters, daniel radcliffe gq interview, daniel radcliffe hagrid, daniel radcliffe harry potter, daniel radcliffe interview, daniel radcliffe weird al, film, gq, gq iconic characters, gq magazine, guns akimbo, harry potter, iconic characters, kill your darlings, miracle workers, swiss army man, weird al yankovic story

Id: 0acJuZsr_nQ

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022