In a candid interview with the Observer newspaper, Daniel Radcliffe admitted that there were “things that I consider to be failures when I look at certain performances.”
When asked which roles to name, he admits: “The sixth Harry Potter film – I’m not happy with my performance in that film at all. There are things in ‘The Woman in Black’: I’m really glad it went well, but when I look at this film, it was probably six weeks between finishing ‘Potter’ and starting, so I hear the same voice and see a very similar acting style.”
(JK Rowling invented Quidditch to “make men angry”)
His mantra as an actor is: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
“Many, many people still believe that I can never escape Harry Potter. So my drive is to prove to people that I’m not actually a one-hit wonder.”
In the interview, which he does to promote his next theatre role – the role of “cripple” Billy – in the West End production of The Cripple of Inishmaan, he reveals that he enjoys violence on stage. “I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my lunch breaks as a kid choreographing fight scenes for Potter, so I’m pretty good at it: the stunt department always said I jump.”
He adds that he wants to get the lyrics to the song “Bravery Already Exists” tattooed on his body – a tribute to his love of the band British Sea Power. “I want to get a tattoo on my forearm, something on my chest and maybe something on my back.”
He can’t do it yet because he’s done so many nude scenes – including the gay sex scene in “Kill Your Darlings,” a nude bathing scene in “The F Word” and a straight sex scene in “Horns.”
(Jason Isaacs: “My Rich Groupies”)
“In a way, it’s bad luck,” he chuckles. “Everything I’m really interested in happens to have to do with something scary, like taking my penis out or learning to dance (for ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ on Broadway).”
He admits that it was a stretch to cast him as Allen Ginsberg in “Kill Your Darlings” – even though Ginsberg was Jewish, working class and American. He satirically recites: “Daniel Radcliffe: English, Jewish by the way, but not really, upper class and definitely looks a million miles away from Allen Ginsberg.”
People are amazed that he and his Potter co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson haven’t “gone crazy.” “It’s great when you go into it with such low expectations because you’re always a pleasant surprise.”
He loves the TV series Come Dine With Me, but admits he eats like a “19th century Irish working man” – meat and potatoes and bread and cheese. During the filming of Potter he could never admit that he was “very bad” at eating fruit and vegetables.
Radcliffe also made headlines this week when he told Time Out magazine he “definitely wants to have children” because they would bring a “wonderful change” to a parent’s life.
