Did you do Equus to prove you're more than Harry Potter? Do you look ahead to after Potter?
Daniel Radcliffe: “I do give a lot of thought. That question was asked to me in a rather more brutal way the other day. I think what they meant to say was, ‘Is there life for you after Harry Potter?’ But what they said was, ‘Will you live after Harry Potter?’ on the red carpet which was slightly… I don't know what they're planning for me after the seventh film. But yeah, Potter's never something I would want to distance myself from because I'm incredibly proud of it. It's given me the most amazing opportunities and I've met some of the most fantastic people and got to work with these brilliant actors. But I certainly also want to establish myself as an actor in my own right, rather than being just the actor who plays Harry Potter. And as you say, it's just as much if not more to prove to myself that I can do it than to be able to prove it to the audience. Because there will always be people who see us as our respective characters no matter what we do. But ultimately that's more their problem than ours because they are not the people who are going to be stopping us from doing other different things.”
What was Evanna Lynch's reaction, being such a fan being on the set?
Emma Watson: “It's really funny. I guess, like the fifth time around, Dan, Rupert and I were just kind of… It's quite a surreal experience working at Leavesden Studios. You'll be going along on your - the studio's so big we have little golf carts. Anyway, we're going along and they'll just be like, I mean, we've had like a giraffe, we've had…”
Daniel Radcliffe: “We did?”
Emma Watson: “No, no, no. Maybe not giraffes but we've had like goats. We've had bats.”
Daniel Radcliffe: “We have had goats and bats.”
Rupert Grint: “Armadillos.”
Emma Watson: “Armadillos. That's why you'll be going past and it's like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’ And we're sort of past the stage of really - I don't know. It doesn't really affect us. Like a giraffe could go by and I wouldn't care.”
Daniel Radcliffe: “That almost happened. We've obviously been so adjusted to it we've not even noticed.”
Emma Watson: “So anyway, the point is that when you step on set, these amazing sets, we kind of take it for granted at this point. And when you see Evanna Lynch's face every time she steps on set, it kind of [comes to you] again and it makes you realize just how amazing the whole experience is. Its stops you from getting…”
Daniel Radcliffe: “Blasé.”
Emma Watson: “And taking it for granted. It was really nice to have someone who's so genuinely, genuinely just completely excited and just in ecstasy every time she saw something new. It was really nice.”
Daniel Radcliffe: “We did have one moment though where it was very, very hard to present an idea to David Yates if Evanna was standing next to you because if you said something and it was even slightly wrong from the technicality of the book, she would…”
Emma Watson: “She would be looking at you like [scowling].”
Daniel Radcliffe: “And you would be in deep trouble. So you'd sort of have to be quite careful. Whenever I talked about the wording of the prophecy and she was there, I'd just be like, ‘Where's the book?’ But no, it was fantastic to have Evanna around because she is such a massive fan of the books and the films so it was lovely to have that enthusiasm.”
Emma Watson: “I remember actually after watching the film, the person I was most nervous about finding out their opinion was Evanna. I go up to Evanna just like, ‘What did you think?’ It was really, really scary. But she loved it so I was like, ‘Okay, as long as she likes it, we're good. We're all good. That's good.’"
Where did you go to play the darkness? Did David Yates share ideas about this role?
Daniel Radcliffe: “I mean, I don't know, I think everybody's got that side of them which they can draw upon when they have to if they're trying to act it. So yeah, David was fantastic. I think the two people in this film that were most brilliant were obviously David Yates was just incredible throughout the film, and what was remarkable about David was that he had the same enthusiasm on the last day of filming as he did on the first. Which, on a 10 month shoot, is quite an achievement so working with David was fantastic. I can't think of some specific notes that he gave me in terms of how he started this. I just remember him coming up with very, very real, accurate direction the whole time.
For instance, there was one scene very early on in the film when Harry's asleep and he's having nightmares and then he wakes up suddenly. I was doing a lot of that sort of movie type of, ‘Ah!’ sort of waking up. And David just says, ‘Dan, no one does that. Just open your eyes.’ Yeah, you're absolutely right. You do see it in films a lot of the time when people are lying straight down in bed and they suddenly sit bolt upright. If you try and do that, it's incredibly difficult to do, let alone when you're half asleep. But yeah, so working with David and also working with Gary Oldman in terms of the scenes concerning [spoiler deleted] in the film, sorry if I spoiled that for anybody. You've all read it. But in terms of those scenes, he was just a fantastic person to be around. There was the one bizarre bit where he said to me [lengthy spoiler deleted]. He said, ‘Dan, in this next one, do you mind if I do something a little more physical.’ And I was thinking, ‘Maybe he's going to give me a hug,’ or something like that. And he grabbed me and shook me violently for 30 seconds while screaming at me. And then he sort of backed away slowly and you suddenly regress and I just started to cry. It was this really weird thing but he obviously knew it would work. I don't know if he's done it to people in the past but certainly it worked then. He was amazing. That was a very, very long answer. I'm sorry.”
Page 3: The Final Harry Potter Book, Who's Going to Die, and Magic
