From The Vault: Daniel Radcliffe

0:01This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:12Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure. As we ease ourselves into January and shake off the last of the festive fog, what a lovely moment to revisit a conversation that really does reward a slower pace and a bit of reflection. since 2019 we've been lucky enough to sit down with people whose lives and work have shaped our own in ways big and small and occasionally there's an interview that just lingers a little longer than the others after the recording light goes off this week we're returning to one of those moments from the vault a thoughtful gently revealing conversation with daniel radcliffe who points out himself that we have sort of watched him grow up.

0:54Recorded six years ago, it finds him at a point of transition, looking back on that childhood lived in the spotlight, but looking forward to a career he is determined to pursue on his own terms. He will always be an actor, best known for playing that part. But his career subsequently spans global blockbusters, independent films, theatre, and some very unexpected choices in between. Yet what makes this interview so compelling is not the fame, but the candour, the calmness, the normalness, as his reflections on growing up under those extraordinary pressures, the people who kept him grounded throughout, and the curiosity that continues to drive his work, as well as the sense of responsibility he feels towards the audiences who grew up with him.

1:42He's a lovely bloke, in other words. If you heard it the first time, you'll know it's worth another listen. And if you're listening for the first time, then you're about to hear a conversation that is honest, warm and unexpectedly moving. Just a nice way to ease yourself back into the swing of things as the new year unfolds. This is a Global Original Podcast.

2:12Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure with me, James O 'Brien, a podcast project conceived chiefly to allow me to spend a little bit more time than is normally available with people with whom I'd like to spend a little bit more time than is normally available. Thank you. A category into which Daniel Radcliffe slots effortlessly. And we will move on shortly to the fact that you seem to have breached the space-time vortex with the amount of work that you've got imminently arriving on our screens and indeed our stages. But full disclosure usually begins at the beginning, which in your case is quite a tricky one, because you were arguably the most recognisable child on the planet during your childhood.

2:48And as an interviewer, I'm not really lacking in confidence, but when I'm talking to somebody like you, I kind of can't think of a single question that you haven't already answered at least a million times. Right. They come up occasionally, but it is hard. Yes, I can imagine that it is. Yeah, I mean, but it's, yeah, I don't know, but don't feel bad about it. Well, it's not that I feel bad about it necessarily, but it's more your time and energy, isn't it? No, but there's limited questions you can ask a person, isn't it? I mean, yeah, and also I think there's the thing of, it's just an odd thing to, you know, talking about yourself is not a sort of very natural thing to do, especially if you find, like, the people who just are fine with talking about themselves for days and days and days are slightly odd.

3:32So I think that there's something... You've not heard my radio show. No, no, no. But like... No, but I mean... I know what you mean. I think there's something about doing press where there's an imbalance between how interesting everybody else finds me and how interesting I find myself. Because I've just lived my life and it's just been my life. Yes, exactly. So it's always like, I suppose, odd to me to try and then make it or to realise that it is interesting to other people. That's beautifully put, actually. because of course it is although we don't know a great deal about you which is presumably deliberate i mean there's there's always talk of attention and being followed around by paparazzi but oddly i think watching your life and career you you do exercise agency you do have quite a lot of control over how much of you is out there yeah and i think you have to and i think there's a there's a balance to you know look i'm a public person who after a certain point that was you know consensual like after a certain point i was i was you know contributing to that and wanted it to be the case because being you know famous or whatever allows me to do my job and allows me to do my job in a certain way that gives me a lot of control over what i do so i think there's and you realize that you know i i hate when i see actors go into interviews and clearly not want to talk at all i i when people are just being like oh press is press and you shouldn't like the idea that like doing press is selling out is just idiotic but i do think there is also like you don't need to tell people everything you don't need to talk about and that and that also was like a journey of learning that i could say no to things um that's actually been a huge i saw a photo shoot the other day when i was like 15 and i am just tangled up in the wires of a head of headphones and have the headphones on oh man that was at the time when i didn't realize i could say no i don't want to do that in a photo shoot um because you're i mean you like to please i think it's fair to say isn't it so so i i interviewed you briefly a few years ago and and i was struck by just how charming you are you recorded a little message for my children which you absolutely didn't have to do but you also because i never ask normally in these circumstances but you know the kids at the time kind of quite a big cross yes exactly that but but i mean you're obviously a very good actor so of course you could have been acting but it didn't seem to be done under duress or with a sense of oh here we go again there was a there was a fundamental decency there i think that i do feel genuinely um lucky to and and and appreciate what a crazy amazing when a lot of not all the time but sometimes when kids meet me it is like they are meeting father christmas like it is it is such a specific childhood place that these films sit for people and without me to sound too worthy and i will sound a bit worthy when i say this you i think there is a responsibility that comes with that and you know i and i completely like i have active friends who will be out and if someone comes up to them for an autograph um they say no and i think that is completely within their rights to do that people would argue and have argued that it is within my rights to do that too i don't feel like i can in the same way i do feel like you have to do a bit more when you're famous for something like Potter.

6:52But being part of people's childhood, as opposed to just being someone that we saw on Saturday night. Right, and it's something that, like, if they, you know, I'm aware, you know, I have not got every interaction with every fan I've ever met, perfect, I'm sure, but there is an awareness of, like, if you're meeting a seven-year-old, you know, you may not remember meeting that seven-year-old in a few years, but he will remember meeting you, and that one interaction that you have with them can cast, rather than a seven-year-old, more likely like a 20-year-old who's watched the films already, the interaction they have with you can cast their watching of the films in an entirely new light, and you never want to damage something that's that special to people.

7:31Yes, you mentioned learning. You're not the same person you were when you did that photo shoot as a 15-year-old, but it occurs to me there's not really anyone you can learn from, is there? This is a journey you've been on your own. Right. I mean, I think you learn from the people you have. So you learn from the people that... But in terms of a precedent or an example to follow. No, there's not really anything. There's no one you can ring up and say, what did you do when that happened? Because I'm really struggling with this bit of it. Yeah, no, there's not. There isn't anyone like that that I can think of.

8:04But I did have older actors, so that was, I suppose, the closest thing. I remember Gary Oldman talking to me about certain parts of the industry and what they might make you feel. And also, he was one of the few people that would like, from outside my agents or my dad, and Gary was one of the few people that like talked to me about the position I was going to be in after Potter and how to, you know, I can't say on the radio, but he was like, he has, I was like, he said, you know, you are going to have bleep you money. And you should, you know, basically said, like, make the three you want. Don't do what other people think.

8:38And, you know, which was sort of something I think I was going to do anyway. but it's nice to have it from someone like that as well going, you know, to actually sort of say it to you. But yeah, there's not a huge amount of precedent. But I would say there's not a, for every person who gets famous young, every situation is completely different. And the fact that I made it out like okay and relatively sane and relatively healthy is, that's, I mean, I was very, it's a lot of luck. It's a huge amount. Well, it's luck and judgment, I suppose. And you mentioned your dad. Family must be absolutely crucial to this.

9:16Yes, 100%. Feet on ground business.

9:22My parents were both, I was also really lucky because, you know, they were both in the industry and my mum was a casting director, my dad was a literary agent. But they'd both been actors and not had a very good time doing it. I mean, they'd had fun and good memories, but ultimately hadn't been kind to them. So they'd changed jobs. and they had the perfect amount of knowledge about the industry to guide me and to be really helpful, but they weren't so in it that they were jaded by it and they were still excited for me. So yeah, I really, I lucked out with them with the fact that we filmed it in the UK and I got to, you know, when I think of what growing up as a famous kid must be like in LA, I do think, Christ, like I don't know how you would.

10:08Well, some of the stories are apocalyptic. I go insane now when I'm in LA for too long. I don't know what it would be like if you... It's not normal. And you've got 12-year-olds surrounded by grown-ups telling them that they can have whatever they want and do whatever they want. I mean, yeah, it's mad. So I'm always loathed to... A lot of the time people want me to comment on, like, Lindsay Lohan or Justin Bieber or anything like that because, you know... Because there's, like, a narrative growing up around all of us which is in one way very pleasant, which is like, they're the child stars, you like did good and made it out okay.

10:42Yes. But actually there is no, I'm always loathe to criticize because there is no blueprint for being famous when you are. I think one of the most... No, that's the point, isn't it? Right. And I think what it's like to suddenly come up against a load of, if you don't know who you are and what your values are by the time you get to a certain point, you're going to get to an age and the world will be presenting you with what they think you are and what they think your values are. and it's very hard to not just give in to that and think, oh, that's clearly what I should be doing. People used to say to me all the time, oh, if I was famous, I'd be living your life way differently.

11:16I don't do a huge amount with my money. I'm not particularly Australian. And everyone thinks that they would. And there are moments where I go, man, am I really bad at being famous? And even worse at being rich. Yeah, but terrible. I'm terrible. I understand that. What was the craziest thing that was written about you when you were still sort of forming? Because I presume it takes a degree of maturity to be able to rise above it and find it ridiculous. It's not, I mean, yeah, like the ridiculous stuff is more, was always very funny to us. Was it good? Like, they would write things. Weirdly, the thing that most affected me most when I was young was, and I didn't really, I was spared from it because they didn't show it to me, but some newspaper, probably the one we're all thinking, went after my mum and dad at one point And like wrote like a really scathing article about them and how they like pushy show parents.

12:07And, you know, if you add all the details up about, you know, they had been actors, they're still in the industry. Yeah, you could come to that conclusion, but they're just not. And that, you know, they would they would say to me every year, like, if you want to stop, you can. You know, they were always very. But I remember that was the first moment of going like, oh, this is like me doing this now affects other people in my life. That seems unfair and weird. Because you developed, you were working before you got the big call, weren't you? Have you seen the new David Copperfield yet? No, apparently it's great.

12:40Because this was your first big role. That was my first job of any kind, yeah, yeah, yeah. Playing young David. Yes, playing young David. And in what was an incredible cast as well. It was Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith, Ian McNeese, Paul Whitehouse, Pauline Quirk, I mean, it was a crazy cast. And so, yeah, I got to do that. and I haven't seen the new one. I think you'll enjoy it. It's absolutely brilliant. It's very different from your version. Oh, yes, I'm sure. Where did the bug come from then? Because you mentioned your family were both actors, but where did you first feel the thrill? Was it on a school stage or was it?

13:16I mean, I remember I turned around to my mum after a panto that I saw when I was five. It was like, I want to be an actor. And she said, no, you don't. Because again, not a great time. and then and then I cycled through a million other things then I wanted to be there, it wasn't like I I was, oh god, I mean just like what kids imagine jobs to be, so firefighter, astronaut you know, marine lots of things that I was never going to do and then that's what's interesting is I am one of the few people that probably got, the bug I got was actually for just being on set right more than it was for acting or for or for films themselves like i have this weird conversation a lot of the time where like i often feel massively um under informed on a film set because our people be talking about film and about films i've seen and all this stuff and famous film and i remember when i did the swiss army man with paul dano and the daniels they all talking about film i was just like i have no idea what you're talking about i don't know any of these movies i really need to watch them this is terrible um but i had this moment of realizing that they had all fallen in love with film and that was their reason for getting into film i was suddenly on a film set and i was like wow i love this i guess i better love acting and film and all the rest of it too because i just i immediately knew that this is where i wanted to be and i did i enjoyed acting and i enjoyed doing scenes with people and that was really fun um but it was actually just the being in the middle of a film set i still find this is like an exhilarating enthralling place to be.

14:53Do you have the show-off gene then? It doesn't sound as if you do necessarily. Not particularly. Actually, like a huge stumbling block for me. I'm doing a play at the moment and we've worked it out. But I have a real problem looking at, just turning out front and doing stuff. Because I think of the audience as being the camera. They are the thing that observes you and so you never look into that thing. That's where my being on film, I think, is screwing up. I mean, I think I've got a little bit of the show-off gene, but not... It's not overdeveloped. And I think what happened then after getting Potter is because I know that what most...

15:32And you mentioned this earlier with the need to please. Yes. I know what most people are expecting of somebody who... I think I said you like to please, not that you need to please. There's a crucial distinction. No, no, no, no. You see the difference, of course. But then what was, I think, I think one of the places that comes from is the fact that I know what everyone thinks a famous young person should be like and the image they have is pretty terrible and so I think I want to with every moment that I get with someone just prove that like I am not that thing that you thought I was going to be.

16:04How do normal through your sort of teens and 20s then how would normal friendships work given that you were usually away you were usually on set your existence was ridiculous by any objective measure yeah and yeah and yeah you you clearly like talking and you enjoy company and you're not you're not no sense of you being aloof so how did that how did that play out well i mean you know film sets are fantastic for that and you know a lot of my uh friends were people on set and film sets are fantastic places to just hang out if you want to hang out and just like chat to some people so and then it's over and then most of them go back to their families and stuff.

16:42So yeah, I think the two best friends I made as a teenager were people I met. One of them is my friend Jess who is a physicist who we both met at a party that we had both gone to because our respective best friends wanted to make out with each other and we were both brought along as weird men. And then we ended up sort of chatting for the rest of the night. And I think she was i think one of the reasons jess and i stayed so close friends is that she has always been and is still god bless her incredibly understanding about my life but at 14 most kids were not most kids were like well if you can't hang out with us then i'm just literally gonna forget you exist and whereas jess sort of was always able to go you have a crazy life clearly i'm gonna see you when i can and that's and that's you know so i think um yeah but and and generally speaking friendships has always just meant just like hanging out at someone's house.

17:41It's like you said at the beginning, actually. You know, you're fascinating to everybody else, but to you, you're just me. It's just the life I've lived. I mean, it's generous of you, really, to appreciate that everybody else finds it riveting. No, I think even that, and now I go, oh, right, I suppose the fact that I'm sort of even vaguely like do normal things is so fascinating in its weird way. Do you do sliding doors? Do you ever think, well, what if Potter hadn't happened? What would I, I mean, because, I mean, you'd probably i think still want to be an actor but you wouldn't be getting offered yeah necessarily the quality of the work that you have been offered i mean no very unlikely um the the i think the um it's not so much that i look back and go oh what would have happened if it's more that i see things about my life or the way i am or anything like that and then go back to potter and go oh is that because of potter and because of the things that happened there or Or would that have been, is that just inborn in me?

18:34And would I have got that anyway? And those are always the both interesting and very frustrating questions because there's just no answer. No answerable, are they? Have you been lonely?

18:46In life? Oh, God, yes, of course, absolutely. I think particularly sort of towards the end of Potter, but I wouldn't have called it loneliness. I wouldn't have known what to call it. It was more just, but looking back, I was coming to the end of something massive and I had no idea how my life was going to go after that. And I think that was probably really frightening for me at that point. But it's been sort of, you know, if you had told me 10 years, because we're sort of 10 years on from 10 years on now with that point. God, I'm sure you're old. I know, it's crazy. Well, I'm now somebody, I'm not on Twitter, but my girlfriend does show me bits and pieces.

19:27And when it was my birthday last year, Apparently somebody tweeted, Daniel Radcliffe is 30 and you are in a nursing home. It's a bit close to home. I am just like a terrible yardstick now for everyone's age. You're everybody's sort of portrait in the attic. Oh my God. But, yeah. But genuine loneliness. Yeah, but like if you'd been able to, if you told me that 10 years on since Potter, I would have made like, I don't know, I don't know if I've done, I've probably done 10 or so films and, you know, three or four or five plays. and, you know, yeah, I would have bitten your hand off if you told me I would be stupid.

20:02And presumably at that age, when it all came to a head, you were too young to appreciate the financial security side of things as well because that's generally not something you worry about. You can argue that I'll never be able to fully appreciate the financial security effect of it because I always will have had some degree of it. It's an amazingly fortunate position to be in and I'm very lucky that I, you know, and again, I can sit here and say money is, I'm lucky for money not to be a motivating factor in my life because I have it. And that is, you know, but it's, yeah, I think somebody also, I was also very lucky to have people around me who gave me a good attitude towards money.

20:45And who were always like, you know, it should give you room to maneuver and do the things you want. Freedom. And that's what it does. Ultimately, the thing that gets you more than any material possession is it gives me particularly autonomy over my career and what I want to do next and what I want to do. And doing anything at all is, you know, I don't just have to charge into things because I need the money. Yeah, because you've got a tax bill to pay or something like that. That would be, yes. I still do my tax. No, I know you pay tax. I'm not looking for a scoop. I may have done a couple of things in my career.

21:22I had a text filter face. I was just drawing on personal experience. And again, it's another example of you've only got knowledge of the life that you've lived. Right. So when you came out of the series and you started thinking about what sort of parts you wanted to play, and I've got a fairly good knowledge of what you've done. And like a lot of people who are nearly 50, there's almost a degree of, I don't know, it's a weird form of affection when you watch the career of someone who moved you and also moved your children as an actor. I don't think you've put a foot wrong yet, have you? I mean, everything you've done has been...

21:59Look, there's nothing I wouldn't have done. Even The Flatulent Corpse had enormous charm, that film. The Flatulent Corpse is a film called Swiss Army Man, for anyone who does not know what the hell we have started talking about. It's like one of the most beautiful films I've ever made. Yes, it really is. It has no right to be, but it does. It really is. But how did you know? Because, I mean, to be honest, I used to be a show business journalist. I'd have had great fun writing up. Oh, yeah. Before the film came out, I'd have had great fun writing up what an appalling error you'd made and what a dreadful career cul-de-sac you'd just gone 100 miles an hour up.

22:34But you got that script. You have people who can advise you. But how did you see the magic there? It was very... Like, with that script, I was just like, this is very clearly written by people who are brilliant. Like, it wasn't... It wasn't, you know, because I've read weird scripts as well, with scripts that amount to nothing and are weird for the sake of it. And with that one, it was just like, oh, no, this is all being done for such a clear reason, and it shouldn't work, but it does. And, yeah, I mean, and then when you speak to those guys and you see their music videos, you're like, okay, no, you've got something going on here.

23:06We should do this. But generally speaking, you know, I am, as I've always said, I'm lucky to be able to pick and choose the things I do. um i i don't think of the things i do as being weird but i have been told they are so many times now that i think i have to have to accede that they they are in some way unexpected weird but i do think i get a unexpected isn't the same as weird no and some of them's full out weird like swiss army man that can be in the weird category fine yeah maybe but i think i yeah i mean i think i think i get an unnatural amount of credit for this because people saw me do one thing for so long that then seeing lots of different things whereas i think most actors like if you look at i don't know off the top of my head adam driver just incredibly varied in sort of the roles and things that he does and and and i think most actors um want that also i think i have to find what my you know i'm not in some ways i'm not a conventional kind of leading man hero archetype so I've had to, but that was the thing that people knew me as initially.

24:15Right. So I've sort of got to find other ways of being, where else can I sit in films? And where else can I be, you know? And plays, and we better move shortly onto the current sort of avalanche of work that is about to land at our feet. But before that, you're an intellectual, aren't you? I don't know about that. No, you, well. I like thinking about things. You can't do, I mean, yes, exactly. I remember the last time I interviewed you, and we touched on some of the stuff you were reading. And it was clear that you like to feel your brain stretched to its absolute limit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

24:52And in a way, your work is the kind of acting equivalent of the intellectual... Totally, and particularly, and I'm not trying to force a segue, but particularly with this play at the moment, because it is such a... Well, Beckett is. I mean, if you're uncomfortable looking out at the audience, and, you know, Beckett is, even for the brightest brains in history, it can be quite impenetrable. And the piece you're doing is, even by the standards of Samuel Beckett, is tricky. Yes, it's... So why? When that call came and you sat and thought and wrestled, am I going to do this? What was it that called to you?

25:29Part of that was very much the sort of the headier side of it, because I did read that and go, I understand enough of this to know that I don't understand it, but I'm fascinated by it. That's kind of what I was trying to say in my own clumsy way. No, no, no, that's exactly right. Yeah, and, you know, and oh my God, thank God I'm not doing it on my own because I wouldn't have been able to, but Richard Jones, our director, and Alan Cumming, and to be able to work on this material with them and to sort of unpack it and work out what all these things mean, it has been really, really fun. But it was sort of the challenge of it was something that I wanted to do.

26:13And also, I found it really funny. Like, I did find, even reading it, I was like, oh, no, I can see how this could be very, very funny in a very dark way. Well, then you're definitely an intellectual. Because to laugh out loud at Beckett, my old English teacher would want to sort of wrap you up and take you home at this point. It's such a, either you get it, and you can work towards getting it. Right, yeah, totally. You know, you watch something like Craps Last Table and you spend 50 % of your mind is wondering what the hell is going on and the other 50 % is just conscious of being in the presence of something very special.

26:41Endgame's not dissimilar, is it, in a way, to that? I mean, it's a beautiful conversation about cycles and ending and concepts. I think he said at one point that it's not a play, it's a situation. And I sort of dispute that slightly because there are narrative things that happen in it, But it's, yeah, it's a play about two people that hate each other but need each other and can't escape each other but are desperate to be alone but can't be alone. Like, it's about sick people needing each other. And somehow in that, we hopefully make people laugh with jokes about stuffed dogs and flea powder. It's on at the old Vic at the moment.

27:22Is it, do you get a stage fright? um no not stage right in the oh i can't go on kind of way i think yeah you get a little bit every night of that sense of like i wanted tonight it all goes wrong um but with beckett the audience wouldn't know apart from the real purists in the audience they've got the takes off by heart you could almost do anything in a beckett play and then just style it out with us you're almost right and we almost have um no i'm sure but we um yeah no you're that is that is very true they wouldn't know you do sort of have to just go but it's almost it's not so much even um things going wrong with the lines it's just like some some some you know some days it feels bad and some days you some days you just feel like you're terrible up there and i've had it in every play i've ever done like you'll have six great shows a week and then there's that one where you're just like what am i doing i'm not doing anything right i can't get it um but those yeah probably scary when you stop feeling like that because that's probably when things are going to I think so.

28:22You're going to be too out there to notice. Yeah, I mean, you know, I watched Alan Cumming get nervous the other day before our first show, and, you know, he's the most accomplished, one of the most accomplished stage actors or actors of any kind I've ever worked with. So I was like, okay, if you're still getting a bit nervous, I can too. That's great. Although you took Equus from the West End to Broadway, so your own... Yes, we did. I like the fact that you could remove Potter from your CV and you'd still be among the most accomplished 30-year-old actors around. Yeah, it is really nice. I just, yes, I wouldn't have...