Dan Radcliffe Talks Rapping and Working on ‘Victor Frankenstein’

Dan Radcliffe is constantly surprising us all with his new roles, each being hugely different to the one before. Junkee caught up with him to ask him about a few of his latest ventures.

He spoke about working on Victor Frankenstein, and one scene in particular where Frankenstein (James McAvoy) sucked pus from Igor’s (Radcliffe) hump:

“That was James’ first day on set,” he says, grinning. “That’s the thing, the sucking out was not in the script — it was syringed out in the script. But when it got to that point James only has two hands and he’s got a lot of props in the scene with the back brace and the syringe and the rope and bucket… He just went ‘well, I would do this — my hands are full — I would just use my f****** mouth’. I was like: ‘right, great idea, awesome’.

“We were all on board with it as it was completely gross and hilarious and then we went outside after we did the scene and saw the faces of the Fox producers who were genuinely looking like, ‘what have we got ourselves in for, do we need to separate these two already?’”

Dan said he was more interested in the “untold potential” of Igor’s character rather than the main man Frankenstein:

“It’s fun to bring a truth behind the image everyone has of Igor in their mind. Where would somebody with that inherent, subservient quality come from?”

Lastly, Junkee ask him about his performance of Blackalicious’ ‘Alphabet Aerobics’ on The Tonight Show (below):

“Whenever I do rap I realise there’s something inherently embarrassing about watching white people rap or — particularly — a middle-class white boy from England,” he says with a smirk. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”

“We all know how it goes when actors try to have singing careers — it doesn’t go very well. Jack Black is the only one I can kind of think of where you go ‘yes, do music whenever you like — you’re awesome, that’s a great band’. The rest … I dunno, I’ve never really seen a convincing crossover. Musicians tend to do better turning into actors.”

“With the Blackalicious song, that moment was like, honestly — I know I’m never going to be a f****** rapper, I’m never gonna be a musician — but I’ve been offered the chance to perform this with The Roots.”

He spoke about his music tastes as well, citing Eminem in particular:

“Eminem’s lyrics have always been an obsession of mine to the point where I anaylse lines: I just think he is so f****** clever. It’s sometimes hard to listen to and rough — but just the word play and how he can do several things in a line and make you laugh.”

Read the full interview with Junkee here!