Recently, BuzzFocus spoke with Daniel Radcliffe, star of the Harry Potter film franchise, whose latest film The Woman in Black opens in theaters on Friday, Feb 3. In The Woman in Black, Radcliffe plays a young father who travels to a town plagued the spirit of an emotionally tortured woman. It may sound like a stretch if Radcliffe’s Hogwarts persona is still fresh in your mind, but he wears the clothes and manners of a young father like he’s been doing it for years.
In January, Radcliffe appeared on SNL, poking fun of his days on Harry Potter while showing off an American accent. After appearing in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway, Radcliffe proved to theatre audiences that he was adept at acting with an American accent. However, for broader audiences, it still came as a surprise when Radcliffe switched out of the Queen’s English.
“In my head everyone knows I can do an American accent because I’ve been doing it for a year on the show,” Radcliffe said with regard to “How to Succeed in Business”.
“It’s been such a part of my life and my existence of the last year that I had forgotten that nobody else has ever really heard me do that. So it’s quite nice to do comedy and show that I can do an American accent. It’s all useful information to have out there.”
Radcliffe stressed that it was important for him at this stage of his acting career to show the world that he wasn’t afraid to try new things and take risks. He specifically referenced his transition period out of being a child actor. He stated that the transition happened when he was “sixteen or seventeen.”
“It’s hard to find good parts that also require [you] to be leading or to be in a relatively prominent role in the piece. Most things aren’t written for people my age. I have been quite lucky throughout my career to be able to play character at the age they are. It’s only now that I’m starting to play kind of odd sides of my own age. To be honest, the challenge so far is about keeping busy. Showing you want to work. Showing you want to do a variety of things. Show that you’re willing to take risks. And, generally to keep active. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve gone from job to job to job. But that’s what it’s about really at this stage — to keep busy and show a diversity of what you can do and what you want to do.”
Regarding his time on SNL, he added, “That was just a huge amount of fun. We had an absolute blast. It was like nothing else I’ve ever done. You’re putting on a full music and comedy show from scratch in one week. It’s mad, but it’s great.”
The Woman in Black focuses on a rural village that is prone to ghost stories, so Radcliffe let us know about what scared him as a child.
“I was afraid of ghosts when I was a kid. I was afraid of the dark and monsters under the bed. And I had those [moments] when you’re a kid and someone tells you about a nuclear bomb. You just live in fear of nuclear war for the next five years of your life. I remember that was me as a kid, certainly. I don’t really have any phobias that I have that I know of.”
While Radcliffe’s time on the Potter set may have desensitized him to the paranormal, there is one thing that he can’t stand. “I don’t love cockroaches and things like that. I’m not a fan of them.” He joked, but we knew that it would be in poor taste to surprise him with a cockroach.
While cockroaches may bother the young British actor, he’s moved on from his fear of ghosts. When asked whether he still believed in ghosts, he stated, “I don’t anymore. In fact none of us do. I realized recently that neither me nor Jane, the writer, or James Watkins our director [believe in ghosts].” He added with a laugh, “So this film was made entirely by cynics.”
As for playing a dad, Radcliffe enjoyed the chance to flex his acting prowess. He also said it was easier to play the role since his son in the movie was his godson, Misha Handley, in real life.
“I rather enjoyed it. I didn’t want to do all that horrible older acting that sometimes people do when they try and play older. He’s a young man. It’s conceivable that I can have a child. It’s certainly conceivable that a man of twenty-four or twenty five, particularly in that era, would have.”
Although a young parent isn’t unusual on its own, Radcliffe admitted that it was “strange” when he first read the script and then played the part.
“It was kind of strange. I knew that obviously people having seen me for so long in a schoolboy outfit that it might be a bit of a leap for someone to see me as a dad. I thought that the thing that would help to solve that problem was if the relationship between my son and I was believable. So I asked James to audition my godson in real life. [James] auditioned [Misha] alongside four or five other boys all of whom were very good and some of whom were a little older than Misha and so were probably more accomplished actors. But there’s no substitute for having a real chemistry. It’s very hard to fake that with “A” a four-year old boy but “B” a four-year old boy who has just walked onto a film set. It’s quite an overwhelming, sensory overload. I wanted to make sure that situation wouldn’t totally freak them out. But since Misha knew me, I knew that he would be comfortable with that. That really helped. But it was really strange when I first read the script.”
Unlike any of the Potter movies, The Woman in Black does not use dense sections of dialogue. The director and screenwriters opted to focus on Radcliffe’s experiences inside of the house and subtle interactions with the other actors. So, there is a major portion of the movie that is without any dialogue, where the viewer is left alone with Radcliffe and the haunted house.
“It was like a novel basically,” Radcliffe remarked. “The middle section totally. One of the things that most attracted me to [the film] was that middle section with no dialogue. Originally there were a couple of little bits of lines in that section, which James – as we were going along – cut out. James’ idea is that if you don’t have to use dialogue to tell a story, then don’t. Which was lovely for me as well, having spent so much time on Potter where there was a huge amount of exposition.” Radcliffe said that in Potter, the story often had to “the audience information that they already know” because “it’s been a while since they last heard it. There’s a lot of that on Potter. Doing this film there’s really no exposition almost at all. Particularly in that middle section, James just let me walk around the house – which was great. I think it’s the most compelling part of the film.”
Radcliffe also admitted to jumping a few times when he saw the finished movie as well as the first trailer.
“I was scared. James is really good at controlling the level of tension and keeping it at a low burn for a long time. So that when those jumps come your body is ready for them because you’ve been tense for the last hour. There were at least two or three moments that I probably jumped at when I saw the film. And, one that I didn’t know was going to be there. The one that’s become relatively recognizable is the one where I look out the window and the face appears next to mine. I didn’t know that was going to be there. So when I first saw the trailer, I went ‘Oh My God.’ It’s really creepy. James delighted in knowing that he was going to be freaking people out with this stuff as well.”
The Woman in Black co-stars Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer. Hinds and McTeer play a married couple in the film. Radcliffe joked about working along side the six-foot actors due to his shorter height. He joked that Hinds and McTeer had “the combined tallest height in film history of a couple, probably.”
“Ciarán is six-foot one and Janet is six foot as well. They’re pretty intimidating for little old me. Which is why every time I watch the scene when I talk to Janet outside the mausoleum, I’ll sit there and go, ‘And, step onto the box, step onto the box.’”
“Cause you could really see the moment where I go, ‘Right, I’m tall now.’ It was an amazing cast. Particularly Ciarán. Janet is incredible, but I only got to work with her for four days I think. But she’s great. I’ve seen loads of amazing actors. No one makes it like quite as easy as Ciarán Hinds. Ciarán just has an ease about him and a naturalness that’s amazing. Most actors you can see a shift or something when they hear the word ‘action’. Ciarán sort of slides into it and you never see any shift. Suddenly, he’s just acting. it’s wonderful.”
If you saw The Deathly Hallows Part 2, then you’ll recall that Hinds played Aberforth Dumbledore. Radcliffe commented on the scene since filming on Potter ended up overlapping with The Woman in Black.
“What was funny was that we worked together on that brief scene (from Deathly Hallows Part 2) and got on really well and I really liked him. But it was [only] three days we were filming for that [scene]. I filmed with so many amazing actors for brief scenes. You get to come in and you get to work with them and then they go and you see them at the premiere. And if you got on, you chat with them. With Ciarán it was wonderful because we did that scene, then we went off and made the film (Woman in Black). And then we actually reshot the scene between me and Ciarán for the Potter movie. It was one of the scenes we had to reshoot. So that actually helped a huge amount. By the time we got back to reshooting it, we had worked together for the best part of six weeks. So it was great.”
“Ciaran was doing double duty. He was doing The Woman in Black and Tinker Taylor. They were both filmed at the same time. Gary is amazing. And I’ve been lucky enough to work with him and watch him and get to know him a little bit. And, it’s been a complete pleasure.”
Radcliffe commented on the differences between working on Potter versus working on a more independent movie like The Woman in Black.
“It was nice to have an actress to react to in The Woman in Black. It was amazingly helpful. I’m used to just having an eye line. So to have an actress there was fantastic. But really, big budget or small budget, the only differences are superficial. Ultimately, a day on set is quite similar on any film. The way the day is structured is kind of the same. There’s always chaos. It’s always busy. It doesn’t matter how much money a film has or doesn’t have. It’s always going to have a similar kind of atmosphere of ‘hurry up and wait’. In terms of superficial differences, in The Woman in Black we had a crane camera for maybe two days. Whereas on Potter we had two cranes just on standby everyday. Just in case we needed them. Because that is how extravagant we were [laughs]. It always amazes me how I go on other film sets and people say things to me like, ‘Bet it wasn’t like this on Potter.’ With the implication that Potter always must have been really smooth. And, I would just go, “No, it was a fight constantly. It was chaos. Just in a case of scale.”
As a former child actor, he discussed working with children on the set of his new movie.
“I don’t give advice really to people too much. Whenever there are kids on set, I always get quite protective of them cause I had such a good time throughout [Potter] and in particular on the early films. When you are a young kid, it’s a great place to be. It can be an incredibly creative, inspiring, fulfilling place to be as a kid .I want to make sure other kids have that experience or at least the experience of it being a huge amount of fun. So my role doubles as cheerleader and also sort of disciplinarian, when I would have to say, “Well, your still talking but you should be concentrating.” Just sort of stuff like that.
