How I accidentally made a Daniel Radcliffe meme
The director behind barmy high-concept actioner Guns Akimbo on his film’s inadvertent internet fame
THERE IS A chance that a few years ago you caught an unnerving meme of Daniel Radcliffe circulating the internet, the wand and wizard’s hat replaced with two guns and bear claw slippers. Oh, and he’s not wearing any trousers. “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Bullets” read one hot take.
The somewhat alarming snap was taken on the set of Guns Akimbo, an “over-thetop, Mad Max punk” action film from New Zealand filmmaker Jason Lei Howden. “People thought that it was a marketing team doing it, but it was totally organic,” he says of the viral hit. “Now a lot of the reactions to the trailer are, ‘Oh look, it’s the movie based on that meme.’”
For the director and self-confessed meme fiend (“The one of the two women yelling at the cat is my favourite”), no-one fitted the bill for his unassuming hero better than Radcliffe. “I wanted to do an ’80s homage action movie where the protagonist isn’t like
Arnold Schwarzenegger,” he explains, though he does cite The Running Man and The Terminator as influences.
“Dan was the first person we went to,” he says. “He called and said, “Dude, I loved this script!”, then spoke passionately about the character for half an hour straight.” Radcliffe plays Miles, a gaming developer who is attacked and awakens the new contestant of a gladiatorstyle contest called Skizm (“I wanted it to look nu metal, like Korn spelled with a K”). He also has a gun stapled to each hand.
“It was about placing someone who was really uncomfortable with violence in a very violent situation. There’s also a scene where he has to relieve himself with the guns on his hands that’s great.” Miles is pitted against Nix, an “insane assassin” played by Ready Or Not’s breakout star Samara Weaving.
Guns Akimbo has already garnered a cult following since its premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. But with its murderous makeover of Hogwart’s biggest export, the movie will be hoping that it outlives the meme.