How Daniel Radcliffe broke out of prison
The erstwhile Harry Potter star on how he transformed himself into a South African political prisoner
Since handing in his hogwarts hall pass for good, daniel Radcliffe has played everything from a white supremacist to a flatulent corpse. You can’t knock the guy for wanting to make his post-potter projects as ambitious as he can afford them to be, and Escape From Pretoria proves no exception. Based on the life of Tim Jenkin, a South african anti-apartheid activist who escaped from prison in 1979, the prison-break thriller put Radcliffe through the ringer, physically and emotionally. Speaking with Empire, he breaks down his meticulous method.
CHECK YOUR POTTER PRIVILEGE
“This was one of those scripts that you read and you’re like, ‘how is this not more widely known?’ With my specific career, Potter has afforded me to do my own thing, and i wanted to be part of helping to tell this story. That was enough of a reason for me.”
LEARN FROM THE REAL DEAL
“Tim [Jenkin] is a really fascinating guy. i was very intimidated by him because i really wanted to do his life justice. he’s actually in the film — he came on set for a few days, and we were filming in a real prison, and they put him in prison clothes again. i was like, ‘i guess this is nice?’ But he was totally up for it.”
ACCEPT THAT THE TRUTH CAN be TOO STRANGE FOR FICTION
“in the film i have to forge a key, so i make a mould and there’s a whole process behind it. But that didn’t actually happen in real life — Tim just looked at the key he needed, went back to his cell and drew an outline from memory. he’s such an amazing guy. [But] we just didn’t think that anyone would believe that in a film.”
LEARN TO be PHYSICALLY DEXTEROUS
“The main thing that i physically prepared for was a scene where i try to unlock the outside of my cell from the inside. So whenever other people were shooting, i would go into my cell with my stick and mirror and just keep trying to catch the key once it left the lock. You could feel the crew wanting to cheer when i actually did it, because everyone had been watching this fucking key dance around this lock for ages.”
NAIL THE (CORRECT) ACCENT
“The hardest part was that i was doing a South african accent but we were making the film in australia, so you can find yourself being dragged from one accent to another. i would definitely say it was not an easy accent, but
Tim is more anglo-african than dutch-african, which was slightly more merciful.”
FIND THE RIGHT HAIRPIECE
“initially, i was against the wig. But even if i grew my hair out it wouldn’t grow like a dude’s in the ’70s. So we tried one out and i was like, ‘is it me, or does this fit really well?’ We named it Jackson after Bradley cooper’s character in A Star Is Born.” Escape From pretoria is in cinemas from 6 march