Extended Interview: Daniel Radcliffe talks how he went from wizardry to Tony nominee

first of all congratulations thank you so much it's it's really cool it's an unbelievable show thank you uh and I want first of all how did you how did you get involved in this way back when um so I saw this production um Maria Freeman's production of marily in London in I want to say 2013 um and I saw it then and I loved it it was the first time I'd seen any production of marily or I think even mer wasn't one of the scores that I had heard as much growing up so I didn't know it as well and I was just I found the whole thing just thrilling and amazing um but I didn't and I will say that a part of me when I watched Franklin Shepard went God I would love to have a go at that one day I really like I mean that seems like a song that I would be in my wheelhouse and why did you think that because I for as long as I can remember have been weirdly OBS my reaction to hearing a fast lyrically complicated song has always been I want to try and learn that um I was obsessed with Tom Lara growing up and so I memorized like a lot of that stuff um which was all training really for franklen Shephard um and so I watched it then loved it um and then when they had sent me the script and said would you be interested in this and I met Maria and had a fantastic meeting with her and it was immediately something that I wanted to do and be a part of from there as she went to build out the cast of Jonathan and Lindsay it became more and more just I was just so excited and thrilled at the way it all but I could never have dreamed that it would go as well as it has gone I don't think but but it's it's been extraordinary yeah the three of you have a real relationship it seems most of the reason that I'm any good in the show is because I'm next to Jonathan L Lindy and I get to act with them and I don't have to work to feel any of the things my character is supposed to feel I've never really I haven't had that often as an actor before it makes it very very easy we've lived kind of alongside each other now over the past couple of years I've had a kid Lindsay has got married she's having another baby Jonathan's seen Beyonce four times it's been a huge time for all of us he makes that joke himself so I'm not just being uh flippant yeah but you were even the ring bearer at Lindsay's I wedding yeah which came out of purely that we were we were standing in Lindsay's dressing room the day before her wedding day and um because in the show I'm the ring bearer at Jonathan and Katie's wedding and so Lindsay just threw out like hey would you be the ring bearer at mine and I was like entertained by that idea and then when I got to the wedding I was like oh this is I've gone from just being able to relax and be a guest to having some responsibility and I hated that um but I'm I was very honored to be asked I would imagine that kind of growing up in film theater is is is quite different it is but I think I had always um I I think I'm very lucky to have gone from film to stage in the way that I have I don't and maybe this is something I I think probably worked on as I've done more stage but I don't see a huge or I don't think of the types of acting that I'm doing on stage and on film as really being any different I think you sort of think of you know you naturally fill a a bigger space a bit bigger but I don't think of having to do anything really differently in terms of my process from one to the other um and but I was aware particularly starting in London I was very aware of there had been kind of like a Spate of film actors doing stage and a lot of people had very strong opinions about whether they were good at that or not and um and uh sort of critique that was leveled I think against a few of them was that they just can't like project or they can't do any of the stuff particularly in London like this very little M King in straight plays um so I was like okay well I want to try and not let people say that about me so I started working with a voice coach kind of 18 months before I went into rehearsals for EAS because I knew there would be stuff to develop and and get better at and then I think because I grown up around my my parents I've been raised by growing up around my parents sounds like a weird thing to say because my parents raised me um and they are who they are but technically it's true yeah it is true they had grown up doing a lot of theater when they were actors so I think I'd heard stories about what that was like so it wasn't like a huge shock to the system in terms of the H shows a week or the the the the differences in the sort of the day-to-day of the job Eis was a pretty bold choice to make at at that point in in your life in your career I guess so yeah I mean I think I knew that if I was going to do stage I couldn't do something that was going to be like easy like I knew that I would have to be doing something that was challenging enough that people couldn't say well yes he's done stage but it's not really you know he's not really pushing himself he's not really do I I felt like and you know maybe no one would have said that and I could have just done something much easier but um but I'm so glad I did that I do feel like every time I've done any theater of any production I've ever done I've come away from it like a better actor you think you were trying to prove anything to yourself or to anybody else 100% there's a huge amount of confidence that comes from knowing cuz filmm acting is wonderful and I love doing it and I love working on film but you can get bailed out by an editor you know your entire career editors make performances I knew I wanted to continue acting but I wasn't sure of what I was offering or what or how good I was or what I could do um there was something really a relief and reassuring and confidence building about learning that I could succeed just on a stage in front of an audience without the millions of people that can save you a film set what made you want to be an actor I think I loved the process of making stuff immediately I from the first time I was on a set on David Copperfield or on Potter or the first time I was in a rehearsal room I've I've always loved being in this environment it's the best job in the world um and I like I'm I'm strange in that I'm less passionate about like watching films and theater I mean I love going stuff and the things I love I am very passionate about but I don't devour it in the I I was I got into like making stuff before I really had time to get passionate about watching stuff I think it was around the third Harry Potter film where I really started thinking okay I I love this I love being in this world I want to make sure I can try and continue that for the rest of my life yeah what did you love about it I mean I think being certainly being on a a film set or on stage it's I think it's even more true a film because of the the huge amounts of disciplines that go into making a film um you were just in the middle of hundreds of people all pushing together in a creative act and that's an incredibly exciting thing to be in the middle of I think you it's a there's Community onset and in theater yeah part of a team and that's that's some that's I've always just loved that environment yeah you you've talked in some interviews that I've read about how the cat you and the rest of the cast were all very aware about about being Child Actors and what was supposed to happen to child actors yeah um how did you process all of that I don't know I mean I think we all did we all did pretty well I think we just had a uh so from day one or two after it was announced that we were playing the parts and in interviews the way you sort of the way we received a lot of the perception of ourselves as kids was actually through interviews like this because not like this this is nice but like but if but you'd sit down but you you know you'd sit down a better example is maybe towards the end of Potter where I'd be sitting down with somebody and they'd be like so how do you feel about you know the possibility that your career just never going to be anything after this and you kind of oh right yeah I guess that is what people think and from the word go as well people would start asking about other child stars or other stuff and so you get a sense of that pretty quickly yeah well the track record typically isn't great that's the thing I would I I I do see that but and I I I would very much not want my son to be an actor and certainly not when he's young um but I do think there's also like Christian Bale and jod Foster and the ones who go on to be successful as adults you just forget they also did it when they were young a lot of the time I mean I remember a conversation that me em and Rupert had really early on where I would say I we said to each other like we must not let each other get bigheaded I think was the sort of the the word we used at the time you think there was a danger of that at that point well I don't think so I think it was just something that we were 10 or 11 and we were like hearing that this is what happened to other people in this world so we were like we must like keep an eye on ourselves um and I think I attribute a huge amount of that to the crew of the obviously to my parents first and foremost but also the crew of The Potter films were really important in treating us all kind of as kids first and as actors second yeah what did you take from your parents in this sense because your your mother was a casting director and both of your parents had acted yes yeah and my dad was a litery agent um then he gave up his job then to chaper me on the Potter set um I mean I I always think my parents were the perfect amount of knowledgeable about the industry to help guide me through it without being jaded or cynical about the industry or opportunistic about the industry or anything like that so I I really I mean I I lucked out with with them they were very very and they were also really good at keeping me you know they they were I don't think ever going to let me get like too big for my boots yeah well I mean it's it helps when when you get parents who know what the process is it helps a huge amount I mean they can even though if my dad hadn't like they hadn't SP a huge amount of time on film sets as actors but they've been around them a lot in their adult in their later careers and so they could definitely you know they knew what was expected of me they knew what was expected to you know in terms of and they could also you know they looked out for me and you know would check that they were very you know that I was getting my schooling every day or that I wasn't on set for more hours than you know especially now having a kid when I think about what they did in terms of like getting me through it and just handling everything thing in a in a way that I I often tell the story about one of the most intense things that happened to me as a kid was arriving at um the airport in Tokyo when I was like I think 13 I think there were 5,000 people at the airport um waiting to like creep me and and it was crazy like it was there were a hundred guards like holding people back and they we were like racing through them all and to try and like get to the car um and we got to the car and my mom and dad just sort of started laughing about it and being like whoa wasn't that crazy and I think a lot of the time as a kid you just model of what your parents do so rather than being freaked out or rather than thinking like oh you know this is because I deserve it which is honestly the most lethal thing you could think um you know you just think oh this crazy let's go to the hotel if you see something modeled it becomes possible yeah and I think that's how a lot of my parents are both very I don't know they they always managed to be very very calm in and about what was happening in our lives in a way that I'm sure they didn't really feel calm but they they they kept it together for me I was watching the screen test you did for Potter you were remarkably calm and good thank you I disagree but thank you very much I will say the one thing I have I've seen that screen test and I do I do seem really calm I do seem like I'm very easygoing and happy to be kind of I'm not like freaked out by being on camera or being with the director and I do think it probably helped that I did not know as much about like I wasn't a kid that was yeah fanatically into Harry Potter at that point I had read the first two and also Chris Columbus deserves a huge amount of credit you know he's he's really you obviously famously good with with young actors and um he was just great at making it all making us all feel at ease and like we were having fun you weren't reading it it looked like you had it memorized but I would hope so yeah but I mean but that was a that was a very emotional scene that you were doing I guess yes I mean you know it's a job you want to be a 10-year-old actor you can have to learn some lines I would have learned them with my mom and dad my mom and dad would have run them with me you know they would they were and also they did um you know I I my dad also did this with me when we were a kid he would do like practice interviews and stuff with me what really yeah we did some definitely yeah how did they go good he was just like what are you going to say like think about what you people are going to ask you this so like have something thought about so you can it didn't translate in the first couple of years I I've had it in my head that I was like always fairly okay at interviews and then I went back and looked at some of my like early press tour stuff for the first part fil I was like oh no I did not know what to say or how to be but I was you I was a kid yeah no well that's why I mean that's why I thought you know looking at the screen testing because you at that point You' done you done Copperfield and that was it right Copperfield and I had a small part in a film called the tayor of Panama um but that was yeah that was it so there which is you know yeah I I hadn't done a huge amount but I I was the mo out of I think Tom had work worked a lot more than me and there were a couple of the other young cars but Rupert and Emma had obviously done had done nothing before so I was I had a little bit of experience which was helpful the film roles that you've taken are often described as eclectic um and you have you've been all over the map I mean it's almost like you're it's almost like you're trying to throw people off your Trail great I mean yeah first of all I think I get a tremendous amount of credit for doing something that most actors would like to do if they were in my position which is that I can't like I can pick and choose and only do the things that I want to do um I do think if you can keep people guessing that's a great thing um and I think there's something about having played uh one character for so long that I came out of those 10 years with a sense of like oh great now I just want to do as more as many different things as possible and uh and that sense of excitement at the sort of range of possibilities of stuff that I want to be involved in hasn't really dwindled at all as the time's gone on I'm still like yeah I just want to do now having done merily for a while I want to like try some different stuff out after this was How to Succeed your first musical yes yeah very much so was that intimidating um yes I think I didn't know quite how intimidating it was going to be when I signed on for it I was I think my mom and dad had both grown up on musicals and they both played Musicals A Lot in the cast in my head I'd sort of gone like oh I'd love to do a musical one day but had never thought that it hadn't thought it would happen for a while I thought that would be sort of down the line I remember I said to Rob ashford's I can carry a tune but the dancing I was like get that out of your head like that's not going to happen I am not going to be able to do that I think we had about 18 months at that point till we were going into rehearsal theoretically um so he said we've got 18 months why don't you just see where you what you can do in 18 months um and he set me up with an old friend of his um called Spencer Solomon who was my dance teacher and became a a really good friend we did choreography from Guys and Dolls that Rober choreographed in London the U McGregor version there was some stuff from Thoroughly Modern Millie Spencer was throwing me stuff from Chicago and just to just just to get me learning the language of choreography and I will say doing uh doing the choreography that I've done in that show is is still I I if I ever look at that I do go I cannot believe I did that I'm still so proud of that like the final yeah Brotherhood man in that show I'm is one of the proudest things I've ever done I can't believe you you were given like that long a Runway to get ready I mean yeah I mean it's incredibly lucky I I um so when by the end of Potter I and that's is one of the other things about that I like about my life now and sort of being able to have a bit freedom I at the end of Potter I could tell you what I was doing for the next three years um like on a month-by-month basis I mean you knew it was coming but I imagine that transition must in some ways have been a little scary it was I mean yeah just in the sense that I love doing what I do and was scared that I wouldn't get to do it as much as I want or do it forever yeah um but also freeing yeah absolutely I mean I that was it's the yeah it's the double-edged sword of of that moment I remember feeling on the last day of pter like I didn't know what I was going to do next or how I was going to cope because it wasn't just the films it was like all of the people and the building and the day-to-day life that was just the structure of our entire life for 10 years I did a film in the UK the woman in black and then I came over here and did how to succeed and then after how to succeed I did my first film In America which was Kill Your Darlings the crew of Potter was so huge there were so many thousands of people working on it every day that you're very unlikely to ever step onto another film in England without knowing somebody who knew me as a child on the women in black I love that film I loved making it but there were people on there who'd like see me as a kid still and so I think there was something really important about coming to New York and making a film here where actors crew Everybody nobody had known me since I was growing up nobody was you know it and I think that allowed me to like see myself as an adult more and start to sort of grow I guess no that totally makes sense sometimes you have to recalibrate your own sense of self as well as other people's right and like if I and find out who am I when I'm not surrounded by people I've known for 10 years who am I in this you know the world I want to be in but not surrounded by everything that is totally familiar I mean I guess when I said you know some ways you were trying to throw people off it's like you you're trying to make people forget something in some ways I've always been slightly shy of of sort of using those words just I want I wanted to be able to coexist and I don't feel like there's any reason why it can't um you know I love Potter and I love those films and I love what I wouldn't be where I am without them and I wouldn't be I wouldn't have found the thing that I love doing without them um so I'm always very happy to sort of like talk about them and to meet people who love them I think at the time come in the few years immediately after I was a little bit more like can we talk about you know can we talk about the film plays not part I I think it was probably a bit more of that um but now I think I'm so sort of like happy with where I am I feel like you can do new things without without disregarding the old that's a good place to be um you've mentioned being a dad a bunch how are you finding being a father I love it and him so much it's uh it's yeah it's Indescribable really it must be a lot though to have a one-year-old and be doing as you are today two shows yeah it is two show days are particularly hard and sad because I leave in the morning and then he's very obviously he's asleep by the time I get back and I do feel like I see him the next morning I'm like oh you're a different human being you have grown up so much in the last 24 hours there's some things about the theater schedule that are great I'm around most of the day which is really really nice most days of the week um and then I just go off in the evenings when he is mostly asleep but it's still it's it's six days a week and I'm I'm just you know I'm ready to just be with him for a while after this this closes and just be a family with him and Aon you live parttime in New York right yeah yeah what made you want to settle in New York I think it's honestly it is tied into my experience of doing theater here in a big way at a time when the rest of the world was being like you are always going to be Harry Potter it was like Broadway kind of went like let's see let's see what else you can do you felt Embrace accepted and embrac and and and and um and very lucky to be here and then to be able to live there for a year um and then I met my girlfriend shortly after how to succeed and she lives here and so it was always something I was kind of gradually spending more and more time here and now I I you know I have an American son so I will be uh I will very much be here yeah do you think of yourself as a Broadway actor now I mean you've done five show so yeah I've done five shows I think at at a certain point I get to say that um you know not to say that that's a that's a uh complete finished article or anything like I'm always going to hopefully be getting better and and and not resting on any Laurels but but yeah I I definitely feel a lot less of the the kind of impostor syndrome that I felt when I was for particularly in the rehearsal room for How To Succeed where I was like what am I doing doing a musical with these people who are all like singing and dancing in in ways that I could never dream of um but you know you you keep keep working and you catch up a bit what do you do when you're when you're having that feeling I mean I think you just go well I'm here now so let's like try as hard as you can and work as hard as you can and throw yourself into it with the people around you I remember when I was doing eus um there was like a story that was written in um an English newspaper that I always misremember the first line of it but it was something along the lines of um crash the sound you hear is the sound of a career coming to a grinding Halt and the tone of the thing was like this doing this play is a big mistake and I remember looking around the room at Richard Griffith and theia shck and John napia and David hery these incredible lighting and set designers and and being well if an actors obviously Richard and just going like well if I'm growing up then I guess all of these people are too and I find that pretty unlikely cuz all of these guys really seem to know what they're doing a lot of it was about trusting in the people around you that you're all trying to make something great yeah but you have you haven't been afraid to sort of walk out on the edge I guess not I mean you know it's not it's not I'm not in a war zone it's not I can't I I don't like to say too much about actors bravery there's a there's a certain vulnerability that you have to have or whatever and be willing to there has to be some kind there has to be some kind of emotional bravery and and even isn't there I mean I think so yeah absolutely cuz you you you're I just I think um I think I just struggle with the the term bravery being applied to something it's such a night it's a great job like and it requires that you sometimes you know there's a sense of I remember James makoy actually I worked with him once and he talked about like you know when you're crying on a film set and you crying in front of a bunch of people that like absolutely don't care that you're crying and there's something like you feel silly there's something embarrassing about it for and and but like part of your job as an actor is to just like be okay with being embarrassed and and and and exposing that stuff I think I I have the most fun and I'm at my best when I'm a little bit scared that it's all going to go horribly wrong at any minute like I I mentioned you before Franklin Shephard my sort of the biggest song for me in the in the show in merrily um for the first and touchwood only time went really really wrong the other night how did it go wrong I jumped a full two minutes of the song and I just like took my eye off the ball for a minute and was suddenly like oh God I this is really uh a nightmare um what did you do in that moment I stared at Jonathan gr and I grabbed him so hard like he was the only thing anchoring me to the planet what were you trying to say in that gesture oh nothing it was I think I genuinely felt like I might just like disappear down a hole but then I mean sweat sweat like I have never experienced before to sweat S I sit in the chair the whole number I don't move I was sweatier than I have been after like full workouts yeah I'm sorry to make you relive that no worries thank you very much you see it was happening in my eyes I spent the rest of the show just being like what's the point I was really Jonathan and Lindsay were having to really like keep me going I think you have to have one of those somewhere you know yeah it's it's happened to got out my system and I'm going to be very short for the rest of the Run yeah what else do you aspire to in the theater I really I honestly I don't know I don't maybe some people are out there who have a sort of list of things that they would like to do are Parts but I really don't um I want to direct but I want to do that on film and I don't think I would know the first thing about directing on stage I think it's really different I know you're aware of it I mean in his in his Diaries Alan Rickman said he thought you'd be a great director I know so which is now I've got to prove him right but you want to I do want to and I would love to direct on film and I love I I feel like I would know what I'm doing in that world more than I would know what I'm doing on directing stage I don't have yeah there's not like a list of parts I just but I I I want and hope that I will be returning to Stage you know throughout my career until they kick me out you've written a screenplay I think right I have yes unproduced or un and nothing happening with it but yes I have written something and I want I love writing and I want to I want that to be a part of what I do going forward you do a lot of writing I have not done a lot of writing for a while I tend to go through periods of being like when I've got an idea for a script then then I can be quite prolific and quite fast I'm not somebody who has the discipline to just write every day to keep in practice I I do not I do not have that my especially when you have a one-year-old oh yeah exactly that's I feel like I've given myself a little bit of time where that's just gone out the window and I'll get back to it at some point how do you feel about the possibility of winning a Tony I am thrilled that we're all nominated like if you told me when I was coming out of Potter and not knowing what was going to happen next if that this would be happening one day I would have not I don't think I would have dared to believe you I'm more sort of ambivalent about my own winning I will I will I will burn the building to the ground if Jonathan gr doesn't win with the best everyone else in the category is amazing you I that's that is true but I I just I'm very biased here

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 103,433

Keywords: Harry Potter, CBS Mornings Clips, Entertainment, U.S.

Id: VkS-Eh0FdRU

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2024