Daniel Radcliffe grew up on screen playing the iconic young wizard, Harry Potter, over the course of eight epic films. Since the series ended last summer, fans of Radcliffe’s have been eagerly waiting to see what the British actor would do next. With the release of The Woman in Black around the corner, that time has come, and it might surprise some of his followers.
“I thought with a film like this, which has a strong story, people would be so into it after 10 minutes they would forget about what they came in to try to see,” Radcliffe says about why he chose the film to be his first post-Potter role.
In the 19th century set gothic horror, Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer sent to a small town to finalize the paperwork of a recently deceased woman. Arthur’s presence in the town has locals anxious and he is shunned and advised to leave as soon as he arrives. He ignores the warnings and continues his investigation. Then strange things begin to happen, people in town begin to die, and soon he is being tormented and haunted by the afterlife.
“I look different and I’m playing a man rather than a boy. It’s a different type of film to be in and that’s important for the audience to see that I’m going to try to be doing different stuff,” he explains. “I think this is a very good first step, but I’m under no illusions people will see the film and go, ‘Well he’s not Harry Potter anymore, he’s completely transformed!’ I didn’t think that was going to happen.”
While Radcliffe is not a fan of modern horror films and says most of them leave him “cold”, he is a fan of Hammer Films, which produced The Woman in Black, and fondly remembers watching their 1958 version of Dracula in school as a child.
“I’m probably the last generation in England to have grown up with it,” he states. “Everybody in my class wanted to be Christopher Lee except for me, who wanted to be Peter Cushing. I thought that he was really cool and there is no doubt that had [The Woman in Black] been made 30 or 40 years ago, he would have beaten me to the part.”
Having worked closely with J.K. Rowling to craft his performance as Harry Potter, Radcliffe ran things by The Woman in Black author, Susan Hill, in order to not “piss her off”. As for other preparations for the role, he researched depression.
“I spoke with a couple of friends about depression and the nature of depression,” he says. “One of the things they said to me, which I found interesting, was how physically exhausting true depression is. How it’s a serious effort to get out of bed in the morning. So that’s kind of where I started from with Arthur… he’s physically and mentally depleted.”
Radcliffe himself is far from being physically or mentally depleted and is completely full of life and energy during our interview. When asked about his recent stint as host of Saturday Night Live, he got giddy over the experience.
“I’m somebody who thrives off fear and panic and chaos, so for me that’s just the perfect environment,” he says. “I just loved it. The fact that you’ll do a sketch and then somebody will grab you and run you to do another [wardrobe] change… it was great.”
Whether Radcliffe will ever shed the Harry Potter image is yet to be seen. One thing for certain is that he’s pushing forward with his career and has no boundaries with what he’ll do next. After The Woman in Black, he’s set to play American poet Allen Ginsberg in the film Kill Your Darlings.
“The only way I’m going to get better is by taking risks and working with people who I think are going to improve me,” he states. “The next couple of years for me are about finding people to work with who are really going to push me.”
The Woman in Black opens everywhere February 3.
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