-
(#1) He Read 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' For Everyone Stuck In Quarantine
Parents, teachers and carers working to keep children amused and interested while we’re on lockdown might need a bit of magic, so I’m delighted to launch https://t.co/cPg0dZpexB pic.twitter.com/i0ZjTplVoU
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2020The Wizarding World website introduced "Harry Potter At Home" to offer fans a chance to read through the first Harry Potter book with cast members from the films and other guests associated with the Wizarding World. Harry himself, Daniel Radcliffe, "introduces the Dursleys, who don’t like anything mysterious," as he reads the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
-
(#2) His Post-Potter Film Output Feels Interesting, Challenging, And Complex
Daniel Radcliffe could easily rest on his laurels and make wizard movies for the rest of his life, or he could spend an eternity counting his money and rolling around in a Gringotts vault full of gold coins. But instead of pursuing those worthwhile options, he continues to act. And he's not just making a bunch of those aforementioned wizard movies; he's taking on roles that show his range.
By appearing in everything from nuanced romantic comedies like What/If to farting-dead-body movies like Swiss Army Man, Radcliffe shows that he has good, discerning taste and a desire to craft an interesting body of work, not just an easy one.
-
(#3) Long-Distance Relationships Are His Thing
A lot of guys are weird about being in a long-distance relationship. They need constant validation, and they're super insecure the moment they can't physically see their significant other, but not Daniel Radcliffe. Maybe it has something to do with spending 12 hours a day with cameras pointed at him, but who can really say. He's given multiple interviews where he talks about how cool it is to be in a long-distance relationship.
My girlfriend [actress Erin Darke, 30] and I hop back and forth, so we’re constantly saying goodbye but looking forward to seeing each other. It’s quite a romantic state to be in." And if that weren't enough to make you think he's pretty cool, his thoughts on why it's actually pretty easy to date someone across the world nowadays are very weird but also true: "I always think to myself, If we were alive 100 years ago we'd be getting one letter a year. It'd have to survive assassination attempts to get there.
-
(#4) Playing A Racist Didn't Sit Well With Him
Daniel Radcliffe has taken on a variety of roles since vacating Hogwarts, but his most "I'm not Harry Potter anymore, baby" role was that of a federal agent infiltrating a skinhead group in the film Imperium. In the film, his character says a bunch of awful racial slurs, and he felt terrible about it. In an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, he discussed apologizing for his language to literally every person of color on set.
"Whenever I was using racial slurs and stuff in the film I would have to go up to the actors afterwards and be like, 'I'm so sorry, I just, like, have to say it. I know you know that I don't mean this, but I still feel like I have to say it.' We were the most apologetic bunch of skinheads."
-
(#5) Alan Rickman Was Very Important To Him
People are constantly dying, but when an actor you let into your home passes away, it always feels like death is even more apparent. For Radcliffe, the passing of his Harry Potter co-star, Alan Rickman, was obviously a huge blow. After the monumental actor's passing, Radcliffe penned a heartfelt tribute to Rickman highlighting Rickman's excellent qualities, and it showed Daniel's desire to always better himself through his peers.
He wrote: "As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man."
-
(#6) He Acts Very Chill About His Wealth
After spending a decade as Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe amassed a fortune of £74m, so he doesn't really need to do anything other than count it and throw it at people. But because he's the best, he just ignores it, as he told the Belfast Telegraph: "I don't really do anything with my money. I'm very grateful for it, because having money means you don't have to worry about it, which is a very lovely freedom to have. It also gives me immense freedom, career-wise."
-
(#7) The Man Loves To Write Poetry - A Lot Of It
As if you didn't already love Daniel Radcliffe enough, did you know he's been secretly publishing poetry under a pen name since he was 16? Don't you love him even more? Are you figuring out how to drop references to Daniil Kharms into your next run in with the ex-wizard?
In an interview with Elle, he explained that he wrote more poetry in his late teens: "I was writing poetry more consistently when I was 16 to 19 or 20. In that period I would have written a lot of love poems. I have none that I want to see in print on the Internet forever." Sure you were Danny, sure you were.
-
(#8) He's Best Friends With His Girlfriend
Ugh, stop being such a cool dude, Dan. While discussing relationships, he spoke about how the most important thing to him is that he's friends with the person he's going to spend the rest of his life with as opposed to mortal enemies who just want to bang their bods together.
"I think that's the kind of relationship I always aspire to have with someone I'm in a relationship with," said Radcliffe. "You want that person to be your best friend. In the case of Erin, we definitely are."
The fact that he's emotionally mature enough to realize that he's best friends with his significant other is too much to handle; he needs to kick someone off a bike or something.
-
(#9) He's Genuinely Very Thoughtful
You rarely expect actors to share nuanced opinions about how technology influences people's lives and all the ways citizens hinder themselves by growing more attached to their online lives, but Radcliffe obviously spends a lot of time pondering the intricacies of modern life, and that's very cool. He told Parade Magazine (of all places):
I think people around my age, and younger, are the generation that has grown up using technology for everything. The Internet is very quick and efficient. And that’s the world in which a lot of young people are living, in terms of the speed with which things happen. Like other things on the Internet, the longevity of [love] always comes into question. But I think love is generally difficult to achieve. The way we talk online is less personal, less about actual communication, and often not representative of who we are. That technology is supposed to be about bringing people together. In terms of hooking up, I suppose it is and does.
-
(#10) He's A Sensitive Romantic Who Waxes On Real Love
How do you know when someone loves you? Daniel Radcliffe has been pondering this for quite some time it seems. In Parade Magazine, he expounded on how hard it is to find someone that you truly want to be with. “We all grow up with an idea of what love is. It’s this all-conquering thing that when you find it, all the other problems you have will be overwhelmed and conquered by it. Part of the process of growing up is realizing that that’s not how it works. Actually, there are lots of other things that need to be put into a relationship as well [as love]. Especially if you’re in that situation where you are a friend and are thinking about potentially jeopardizing your friendship for something [more]. That is a situation which most people are in at some point.”
Don't you wish he was your best friend?
-
(#11) He Calls Out Hollywood For Its Racism
Obviously, Daniel Radcliffe isn't a racist. But it's one thing to just say racism is bad. It's an entirely different thing to call out the industry you work within for being inherently racist. In 2016, Radcliffe discussed Hollywood's problem with racism with the BBC and got very real.
"I think it's pretty undeniable," Radcliffe said. "We like to think of ourselves as being a very, very progressive industry, but we have been lagging behind in all kinds of areas."
-
(#12) He Wants To Be A Daddy
A lot of guys Radcliffe's age balk at the idea of becoming a father. In an interview with Time Out London, the actor said that he can thank his parents and all of the cool parents they were friends with for inspiring him to want to make a person with another person:
I really want to have kids. I’ve grown up around lots of people who were having kids when I knew them, because a lot of them were a lot older than me. And I saw the wonderful change in them. A lot more tired, a lot more happy.
-
(#13) Daniel Radcliffe Cares About Being Socially Conscious
Rather than pretend he knows everything about everything, the Swiss Army Man admitted to an interviewer that, until he read Jennifer Lawrence's post in the Lenny newsletter about the pay gap in Hollywood, he never even considered it.
I’m incredibly glad [gender equality] has come up because I had just f*cking naively thought this was not an issue anymore because how can this still be happening? The thing I can’t help but think is: ‘Who? Who’s doing that? What guy is sitting in a studio somewhere thinking, ‘Let’s f*ck the girls out of some money?’ I feel like there’s such a wealth of amazing actresses in the world right now, and we’ve got to start writing better parts for them and paying them equally.
-
(#14) He's Not Weird About Harry Potter
Most actors who spent a decade playing an incredibly popular character really don't want to talk about the thing that made them famous, but not Radcliffe; he actually appears pretty chill about the whole phenomenon. While playing "20 questions" with Playboy, he laid his feelings out:
A huge part of our culture now is that if something becomes successful there’s a backlash. Harry Potter didn’t have that. There are people who don’t want to read it, but the number of people who actively dislike it is very low. The books are great, and they came along at the perfect moment, when there was a fear, because of the rise of computer games, that reading was going to become a thing of the past. When kids suddenly found these books, it was something everyone could get behind as a global populace.
-
(#15) Daniel Radcliffe Genuinely Loves Acting
While some actors like to hem and haw about how much of a drag it is to be on set, Radcliffe wants you to know that he loves doing all the goofy stuff he's paid millions of dollars to do. He told Playboy that he considers himself "lucky" to have been given the opportunity to act like a wizard in Harry Potter:
The most underrated way I and all the producers on Potter got lucky was that I f*cking loved the work. I’ve seen kids on set who are bored, and I’m like, 'What are you doing? This is the best place on Earth.' I loved it from the word go. I loved being on set. I loved the hours. I loved the people. I loved the crazy, weird sh*t I got to do every day. Acting was the focus for me, and I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize being an actor.
-
(#16) He DGAF About Being Short
The more you learn about the filmmaking industry, the more you realize that not every actor is a 6'2" dream boat who rolls out of bed with a crossfit body. Guys don't like to talk about the anxiety that comes with not looking like the ideal of what Hollywood wants you to look like, and Radcliffe admits that he used to worry about his height. But then he stopped caring because it doesn't matter, and also he's a millionaire.
He told The Telegraph, "I used to be very self-conscious about my height, but then I thought f*ck that, I'm Harry Potter."
-
(#17) The Guy Just Wants To Work
Rather than hanging out playing bongos or hang gliding all day with his millionaire buddies, Radcliffe revealed to GQ that more than anything he just wants to make stuff because that's what he does. And he doesn't place any kind of film above another in terms of prestige; he just wants to be a guy who does the job, and that's admirable.
It's my total ambition at some point in my life to be in some massive shitty big disaster movie. But I'm in an amazing position, which is that I have a certain amount of financial security and that allows me to do things that make me happy, and things that will fulfill me and challenge me, with people I'll have a good time with.
-
(#18) He Still Feels Confused About How To Use Email
In an interview with GQ, it was revealed Radcliffe once cold emailed the interviewer to ask him a sports question, not realizing that he just blew his personal email cover. Drew Magary revealed, "Radcliffe once cold e-mailed me a football question for my job over at Deadspin, and when I asked if it was REALLY him, he replied, 'Um...yeah...kind of forgot my name was included in the e-mail. I'm really sh*t with technology and will probably change that now.'"
Oops! But how does a mistake like that happen? Radcliffe blames Gmail for giving him the option to type his name.
I had no idea that when you sign up to Gmail, if you type in your name into your account, that's how it comes up when you e-mail everybody. And I was like, Oh, sh*t—now he's gonna think I'm trying to garner attention.
Damn you, Gmail!
-
(#19) He's Incredibly Honest In Interviews
During an interview with Variety, Radcliffe and his long-time girlfriend, Erin Darke, discussed their interactions with tabloid paparazzi. According to Darke, most of the photos the tabloids take are of them getting coffee or going to the grocery store. "Dan is not the most exciting celebrity," she explained.
And Radcliffe agreed. "I'm really not," he said. "I’ve bored the paparazzi out of following me."
This was never clearer (or cleverer) than when Radcliffe wore the same outfit for several months while he was appearing in the play Equus in 2007. This effectively made tabloid photos of him unusable. As he explained later that year:
I would wear the same outfit every single time with different T-shirts underneath but I would wear the same jacket and zip it up so they couldn't see what I was wearing underneath, and the same hat. So they could take photos for six months but it would look like the same day. They became un-publishable, which was hilarious because there's nothing better than seeing the paparazzi get really frustrated.
-
(#20) Weird Al Picked Him For The Lead In His Biopic After Watching Him Sing Karaoke On TV
Daniel Radcliffe was handpicked for the role of the Weird Al Yankovic by the musician himself after the accordian-wielder saw him singing “The Elements” on The Graham Norton show over a decade ago. Radcliffe explained the discovery while being interviewed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
So 13, 14 years ago, I sang a version of a Tom Lehrer song on The Graham Norton Show in the UK. I sang 'The Elements' next to Colin Farrell and a very bemused Rihanna," Radcliffe said. "I think he was just like, 'Who is this kid, and why is he singing all of 'The Elements'?' And I guess Al saw that and was like, 'This guy maybe gets it.' And so he picked me. So I'm very, very lucky, and now I've gotten to have accordion lessons with Al.
Radcliffe went on to say that while he usually dislikes watching anything that he's involved in, he's actually excited to watch the Weird Al film.
I'm rarely excited to see the stuff that I'm in, I'm very, very excited to see that. It is...I mean, you know, it's a fully insane movie. It's one of the most fun things I've ever done. I don't know when exactly it'll be out hopefully later this year -- but, you know, it's one to look forward to.
New Random Displays Display All By Ranking
About This Tool
Our data comes from Ranker, If you want to participate in the ranking of items displayed on this page, please click here.