Dan Radcliffe Talks about the Strange Roles He has Played

In a recent interview with GQ earlier this week, Dan Radcliffe (Harry Potter) talked about his journey from playing our favorite boy wizard, to playing the role of a farting corpse in his new film, Swiss Army Man. Radcliffe has played a diverse set of roles, and Now You See Me Two has him playing a muggle who is bad at magic tricks (rather than a boy wizard who is better than average at magic, but no Hermione).

Radcliffe is a busy man and already back to filming another movie. GQ reports:

As a famous person, you’re choosing lots of parts these days that involve solitude and getting away from civilization.
The group of people I’m out with is [f-ing] awesome, so I’m having a really good time. This is an incredibly fun job, and it’s very rare as an actor that you feel like you’re earning your money, where you actually go home feeling physically like you’ve worked a really good day. We were filming by a river last week, and the river rose ten meters overnight, so three of our sets got washed away. It’s not normal making a movie like we are, out in a [f-ing] jungle.

Do you have lots of bugs and [stuff] eating you out there?
There are bugs eating us, yes. But we were making this film about this guy who went into the jungle and struggled desperately to survive for three weeks. I’m not in any way a method actor, but if I’m playing a guy who’s starving and I’m going home at night and tucking into a [f-ing] pizza, I’m making it much harder for myself to do my job.

But you’re at a place where you don’t really have to take on rough s–t like making movies in jungles if you don’t want to. So why do it?
I get a lot of credit that I don’t deserve—people notice that I pick very different things more than they do with other actors, because I played one part for so long. Paul Dano (Radcliffe’s co-star in Swiss Army Man)…his career is [f-ing] amazingly varied, and everybody I know wants the same thing, which is they want as diverse a career as possible.

Like, it’s my total ambition at some point in my life to be in some massive [****y] 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. You hear horror stories about actors all the time, and I’ve worked with so few of them compared to the amount of stories I’ve heard. I’ve been incredibly lucky, and I do believe life is too short to work with arseholes.

I just saw Now You See Me 2 (in theaters June 10), and in it you’re a rich young tech guru who’s a spoiled dick. I think you do derive extra joy in playing a d**K on screen specifically because you aren’t one.
Totally. You’re absolutely right. Ricky Gervais talked to me about doingExtras for the first time. I was like, yes, please—finally, a chance to show that I have a [f-ing] sense of humor about all this. Because you are confronted very regularly with the expectation that A) you’re gonna be a d**k, B) you’re gonna fail, and C) “Do you really deserve this?”

How’s fame been treating you? Has your fame settled down sincePotter?
I think so. It took me a few years to work out my priorities. Now I pick things that I think will make me the most happy, and not try to think, “What’s gonna be the most successful thing I can do?” You can be despondent about the fact that you’re never gonna be in something that big again, but that’s [f-ing] idiotic. I’ve been in the most successful thing I ever will be in, and to me it’s a huge relief. Because you just go, “Okay, that’s literally never gonna happen again.”

Would you do a Star Wars movie if you were asked?
I’d love to. I would jump at the chance. I have absolutely no tolerance for people who are not [f-ing] delighted to be on set every day, because you should be.

What made you want to play a farting corpse [in Swiss Army Man]?
The farting didn’t even enter my head as being a weird thing. I was really quite taken aback when we sound mastered it and it caused such a weird reaction in some people. [Many people at Sundance walked out of the initial screening, possibly because one of the opening scenes involves Paul Dano riding Radcliffe’s dead body like a jet ski, only powered by farts.] I can understand it being not for everyone, but controversial? It’s not like we’re making a massive racist remark. It was very strange to me but also kind of entertaining.

Were you upset by the negative reaction?
I remember there was one tweet—I’m not on Twitter. I don’t get involved. But I did get sucked in over that period, and there was one tweet that did get under my skin, because it was a guy that was all p–sed off. He hashtagged one of his tweets #makebettermovies, which I was just like, f-ing—it’s from a man who’s never made a movie! The s—ttiest film you’ve ever seen has had such f-ing hard work put into it! You can’t say s**t like that.

For Swiss Army Man, did they also make you fart and groan on cue? Or did they add all the farts in post-production?
I definitely can’t fart on cue. That is beyond me. They were all done later. The directors basically announced if anyone wanted to just go over to the sound recordist, Steve, and fart, he would record it and they would try and put it in the movie.

Could you see yourself not acting at some point? Taking a permanent break?
Not really. I don’t think I could ever enjoy that if I wasn’t in some way going back to contributing to a film in some way.

My daughter wanted me to ask you why you wanted to be an actor.
Because it was so much better than being at school!