Dan Radcliffe Interviewed by Total Film Indonesia

Jul 09, 2011

Posted by: Mel

Radcliffe

Thanks to DanRadcliffe.com, we have an excellent interview with Dan Radcliffe (Harry Potter) which will be featured in the magazine Total Film Indonesia. The interview touches on a variety of topics, but mostly Radcliffe’s work habits on the set of Harry Potter:

After all this¦ you remain so polite, patient and enthusiastic ’
even to the point of talking to all the little Hufflepuffs between
takes. How are you not a total diva?

(laugh) I
don’t know. I love talking to the background because we have great kids
on our films. They’re brilliant and they all want to be there. In the
earlier films, there were some quite obnoxious kids in the background.
On the last few films, they have just been brilliant. I think that, if
you’re an actor, especially if you’re the principal in something, you
have to see yourself as the¦ just like Amanda Knight is the head of the
make-up department, and Lisa Tomblin is the head of hair, and Jany
Temime is head of costume, you have to view yourself as the head of
your department. So you lead by example and set a good example. I hate
the hierarchy of the film industry. It’s one of the only things I
dislike about the film industry. You hear horror stories about actors
that won’t let people talk to them. I just think that, to be honest, if
you’re doing that, you must be pretty stupid. There are moments,
obviously, when you say, “I just want to be alone now”. That’s fine¦
but I think I have a more interesting day talking to them than I would
be just chatting to myself. If you’re involved and you’re checking that
everyone’s all right, everyone knows what they’re doing. There’s a
legendary man called Michael Stevenson, who’s been in the film industry
since long before I was a twinkle in my parents’ eye, and he is just
amazing with names, If we have a Great Hall scene with four hundred
extras, he will know every single one of them by their first name. He’s
phenomenal. I watch him because he’s always going around and checking,
“Do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what you’re think at this
point?” Eventually I want to direct one day so you learn from people
like that, in terms of how to run a set¦ how to make everyone work as
happily and as most efficiently as they can. That’s kind of the art of
being on a film set, I think: happy efficiency. If you can get that,
then you’ll probably make a good film. Even if you don’t, everyone will
want to work with you again.

Radcliffe also discusses the Epilogue and gives readers a peak into what it’ll look like as well as the personalities of the actors playing his children:

Tell us about the epilogue. Who ages best?

Me. Out of the boys, me. Rupert does not age well (laugh) Obviously [Emma and Bonnie Wright] aged better. They aged the best but the boys were all, like, “Yeah, give us the fat suits!”

How about your own children?

My children are adorable. My children are fantastic. They’re wonderful, sweet, all of them. Arthur [Bowen]
is very good, sort of the quietest of the three and he plays Albus.
He’s very, very sweet, young polite. And then there’s the other two.
There’s Will Dunn who plays my elder son¦ who is¦

James?

James! Thank you very much. Oh god¦ I should have read that script better (laugh). He reminded me a lot of me when I met him in the auditions. I think that’s why I was like “he has
to be one of my kids!” Even though he’s not as pale as I am but he has
this¦ he’s very chatty, he’s fourteen¦ kind of like how I think I am ’
very bright but not academic. he had a lot of trouble at school. Not
trouble but, you know, school wasn’t easy for him, like it wasn’t for
me. And he’s super bright, a really smart kid, so that was great to have
him as my son. And then there’s Daphnie [de Beistegui] who
plays Lily. She was amazing. She’s just like this little, incredible
creature. She kind of basically adopted me as her father for the days
that we were filming. So she would sort of be hanging onto me as we were
walking around the set, which was great. And she’s really, really
sweet. They’re all so smart, Arthur, Will and Daphne are all very
bright.

You can read the rest of the interview here. Thanks again to DanRadcliffe.com!





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.