The Curse of Daniel Radcliffe: Why is the boy who survived still dead in a big movie?

Daniel Radcliffe was just 11 years old when Daniel Radcliffe began starring in Harry Potter, which would later make him a global star and secure his status as the highest paid actor of the decade. However, crazy popularity at such a young age did not always play in his hands: therefore, classmates began to dislike the actor at school, and after filming the magical franchise he himself became addicted to alcohol, because he did not understand. what to do next (however, this was quite expected from a guy who literally grew up on the set).

He turns 33 today and it seems he is still searching for himself: yes, the world saw the finale of Harry Potter 10 years ago, but the “boy who survived” couldn’t get out of the good guy role. Despite desperate—and frankly, sometimes awkward—attempts.

Two points to Gryffindor

To think about what will happen next, Daniel Radcliffe, apparently, returned to the middle of the Potter series, and in 2007 two films with his participation appeared on the screens at once: “December Children” and “My Boy Jack”. True, the audience did not see anything new: in the first film he played an orphan in search of family and happiness, in the second he played the role of the son of Rudyard Kipling, who died during the First World War. glasses. Parents, “boy”, glasses – do you remember something?

In general, in the pavilions of Hollywood studios the actor pretended to be the same thing, while on the theater stage there was much more experimentation. For the first time, Radcliffe ceases to be a diligent student. It is worth only to appear completely naked in Peter Schaeffer’s play “Ecuus” in the form of a mentally ill young man with a dark passion. Of course, there was a scandal: the British demanded that the honest production be excluded from the repertoire, threatening to ban children from watching the magical epic with the participation of the hero. But this work of the actor was appreciated by critics, and, apparently, he himself was filled with negative characters – he will return to them in a few years.

Avada Kedavra!

Daniel Radcliffe’s first role after the magical saga was in the British thriller James Watkins “Woman in Black” (2012). A year after The Deathly Hallows, the actress appeared on the screen in a gloomy story about a haunted house in the image of a young London lawyer, played an inexperienced doctor from the Russian countryside in the comedy-drama Young Doctor’s Notes. The cycle of stories of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov (actor, by the way, a big fan of the Russian writer), later reincarnated as shy freshman and future American poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, tried himself in the light romantic comedy Friendship and Sex Is not there? and in the sci-fi thriller The Horns. All these films were released on the big screen in just two years, and one thing was clear: Daniel Radcliffe, freed from the image of the “chosen one” that had haunted him for 10 years, was finally able to devote his career to finding himself. . Hence different characters, different genres, directions and constant experimentation.

But the audience continued to see Harry Potter in him, and there were less and less high-profile works in his filmography. Trying to escape the obsessive image of a schoolboy, he preferred certain, deliberately adult and serious characters: from the creator of the cult GTA (“Tilting Point”) to a secret agent in a neo-Nazi gang (“Absolute Power”) and a talking corpse (” Swiss Army Man”). At the big box office, the actor, of course, reminds himself – he plays a ridiculous villain in the second part of The Illusion of Deception (2016), but then the tabloids write now and then: they say, Harry Potter went to the side of evil. At least it’s still fun to watch.

Living Child

Daniel Radcliffe was weakly associated with evil by the audience, and the actor himself realized that many years after the Potter series, he grew up with the image of an apparently excellent student, so on the screens three years ago in the action comedy Akimbo Guns, which was released, he himself was built for several years mocked his brutal image.

For mass audiences, at least in our own childhood, he will remain a wizard for a long time as it is a long story: we met Harry Potter when he was 11 and have already said goodbye to him as we celebrate the majority. It’s unlikely that Daniel Radcliffe himself was popular, but rather his character who turned out to be famous, loved by millions, so we still see the actor as that good guy with the scepter and mantle. He even said in an interview with Esquire a few months ago that “nine out of ten times he was approached to take a picture with Harry Potter” and some people on the street call him by the character’s name.

By the way, the actor’s colleagues had luckier in this regard, many of them gained super popularity thanks to the epics or the multi-part franchise: Robert Pattinson and his resounding success after the release of Twilight are just one example. But the actress managed to get rid of the image of a stagnant vampire: she devoted herself to festive cinema, disappeared from the radar of major film studios and earned the reputation of one of the most powerful dramatic actors of our time, survived. the role of a teen idol. Or Benedict Cumberbatch, who got used to the role of a superhero after Sherlock and saved the universe with the Avengers. Daniel Radcliffe isn’t that lucky yet, but it’s too soon to delete him. Yes, he grew up as a survivor and the glory of “Harry Potter” still haunts him, but who knows what more “chosen one” will surprise us?