‘I didn’t act scared with Snape... I really was terrified of him’
Daniel Radcliffe feared Harry Potter co-star ‘hated me’
WHEN Harry Potter trembles before Professor Snape in the hit films, it’s not just great acting by the young Daniel Radcliffe – because he really was scared of his co-star Alan Rickman.
Daniel, 34, now says he did not have to act scared because he was terrified of the legendary actor in his role as the Hogwarts professor of potions.
The Londoner, who began as Harry Potter aged 12, believed the classically trained star Alan, who played the villain in Die Hard, loathed him in real life – and not just in character.
Daniel told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “I was so intimidated by Alan Rickman. How can you not be by that voice?
“You forget quite how low it was until it echoes through you.
“I was so intimidated by him for the first three movies. I was terrified by him and was like, ‘This guy hates me.’”
But Daniel then watched an interview Alan gave about him and the rest of the young Harry Potter stars before his death from cancer in 2016 at the age of 69.
In it, the older star reflected on the “huge pride” he felt for Daniel succeeding in the play Equus on Broadway at the time, and the pressure the young actors in the Harry Potter films had faced from an early age. Alan was very supportive of his young former co-star when the pair met up for coffee in New York. Daniel said:
“He cut short a vacation in Canada to come and see me in Equus. “He saw every piece of stage work I did when he was alive. He’d take me out after and we would talk about it.” He said the senior actor saw his desire to improve his craft and suggested voice and posture coaches.
After watching the clip of his old friend talking about him, he said: “I am so, so lucky. To hear him say that is really lovely.”
Last year the star admitted he is baffled by fans pondering on his supposed habits.
Radcliffe said: “What’s the weirdest story that I’ve read about myself? That I had the SAS walk my dogs. That I had special beer brewed for myself by monks in a monastery in Belgium.
“That I used to get my assistant to hold my scripts in the mirror so I could read it while I was having makeup done – even though that doesn’t make sense because I wouldn’t be able to read mirror writing. There’s a long list.”
Speaking in Vanity Fair to promote his film Merrily We Roll Along, he dismissed speculation he will replace Hugh Jackman as Wolverine after he showed off his muscles in the season four finale of Miracle Workers earlier this year.
He said: “Yes. I got buff because I am obsessive and I want to.
“My parents, they’re like insane fitness people. So that’s just been passed on. But no. No Wolverine. Flattered, but no.”