My guilt over my insane success, by £90million Harry Potter star Daniel
PLAYING Harry Potter brought him worldwide fame and a £90million fortune when he was still a teenager, but Daniel Radcliffe today reveals his guilt at enjoying such ‘insane’ success so young.
The actor, a star since the age of 12 thanks to his role as the schoolboy wizard in the eight films of J. K. Rowling’s books, says the feeling has fuelled his work ethic since his final Potter movie in 2011.
In an interview for Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today, Radcliffe, 30, says: ‘I’ll always have a part of my brain that is going – when I first walk into a rehearsal room – “Everyone just thinks you are here because of Harry Potter”, and in a large part they are right.
‘So you have to make sure you are bringing something else to the table. But if that’s the thing that makes me work hard, then fine.
‘I have been insanely lucky and I think probably I have a vague sense of guilt about having something so amazing happen to you so young.’
Radcliffe also admits to struggling with the intense scrutiny of growing up in the limelight, which prompted him to seek solace in alcohol.
His drinking spiralled out of control when he began to ‘panic’ about life after Harry Potter.
He says: ‘I definitely think a lot of the drinking that happened towards the end of Potter, and for a little bit after it finished, it was panic and not knowing what to do next, and not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober.’
The star, who stopped drinking in 2010, says it was ‘weird’ to realise he had to be sober at such a young age, but he was ultimately ‘very, very happy’ to do it.
He adds: ‘But I will always be fascinated and frustrated by the question of: is this something that would have happened anyway or was this to do with Potter?
‘I will never know. It runs in my family, generations back. Definitely not my mum and dad, I hasten to add.’
Radcliffe, who has been dating 35-year-old American actress Erin Darke since they met on the set of 2013’s Kill Your Darlings, suffers from a mild form of the neurological disorder dyspraxia, and reveals that he struggled with his writing at school. That led some teachers to dismiss him as ‘thick’.
‘I wasn’t very good at school,’ he admits. ‘I was nice, I wasn’t totally disruptive. But I was not good academically. Just the act of writing
‘My teachers at school thought I was a bit thick’
took me an unbelievably long time. That was a struggle so I think they thought maybe “He’s a bit thick” or something.’
Radcliffe credits an eye condition for helping him land his first starring role, in the BBC’s 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield.
He says: ‘I have a slightly lazy eye and when I am tired, it will blink on its own – like Homer Simpson when he is drunk. I walked into this room and looked at the director and gave him like a one-eyed blink and he thought, “Who is this confident kid who has just winked at me?”
‘Apparently that was a large reason why I got a call back.’
● Desert Island Discs is broadcast today at 11.15am.