Daniel Radcliffe is completely renewed with “Weird: The Al Yankovic story”

British actor Daniel Radcliffeknown for giving birth to the most famous wizard in the world in the Harry Potter saga, which is on HBO, is determined to reinvent himself completely, he now plays the well-known musician and humorist Al Yankovic, known for changing the lyrics of popular songs in the United States since the 1960s.

It’s about the biopic “Strange: the story of Al Yankovic”, a very free adaptation of the life of this comedian and singer, who now embodies Daniel Radcliffe with an impressive physical change. Its director and screenwriter, Eric Appel, believes it was the right choice, due to the strange characters Daniel played after Harry Potter.

Daniel played very weird roles, he played a corpse, even a guy with guns attached to his hands, so we thought he’d be the perfect choice, ”said Appel.

For the task of playing this cute comedian, who won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album, Radcliffe had to take accordion lessons. Even in one scene, he has a hilarious battle with this tool against Jack Black, who has a special role in the film. Similarly, the director pointed out that they wanted Radcliffe to create his version of the Weird Al character.

We wanted (Daniel) to create his version of Weird Al and he did it from scratch playing with a lot of emotion, “said the director.

a parody biography

Within the film “Weird: The Al Yankovic story”, there is a passage in which it is narrated how Madonna fell in love with Weird Al, as he wanted me to reinvent one of his sixties songs, he even went to look for it at his house. This is totally an invention of the film, and this is where the whole experiment that its director and screenwriter tried to do falls.

The truth is, Weird Al only did one Madonna song, because I heard she wanted me to parody one of her hits. From this anecdote, Eric Appel has he tried to use the same humor as the singer and comedian, which usually alters realitychanging the lyrics of songs like Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” for “Eat it” and “Smells like teen spirit” for “Smells like Nirvana”.

I thought it would be fun to make a biopic about someone who is still alive and make it up completely, ”says Appel.

The story begins in the tones of a musical biography, with a boy who does not want to work in a factory, devote himself to composition and play the accordion. But it suddenly changes, a lot in the comedian’s humor, playing with different tones, from action to drama, which is why Radcliff fits the role, according to his director, as he has played different genres.

In real life, Madonna got her own parody version of “Like a virgin”, by Weird Al, entitled “Like a surgeon”, recorded in 1985, where a complete satire with lyrics is made. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be streamed November 4, 2022 via the new free platform The Roku Channel.