In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry has to take a potion that alters his state of mind. That altered state was something Radcliffe enjoyed portraying. "To be honest, I just let the more manic side of myself that I suppress for 23 hours of every day loose for a while on set and just became a kind of uncontrollable, vaguely irritating but sort of vaguely amusing person that I sort of keep hidden," said Radcliffe at the press conference for the Warner Bros Pictures film. "I just let him out and run mad for a few days and it was great fun to be able to, actually. It is a side to the character that hasn’t really been seen before. We always sit next to each other, so [producer] David Heyman leaned over to me and said, 'That’s my favorite piece of acting that you do in this film.' So maybe I should have really been playing him slightly more manic all along."
Both Emma Watson ('Hermione') and Tom Felton ('Draco Malfoy') believe that Harry on drugs is closer to the real Daniel Radcliffe. "I do think people probably - if you spent a proper amount of time with me, you would probably wonder if I was on drugs. I'm not. I'm just incredibly hyperactive, manic," admitted Radcliffe. "I can be quiet and serious at the same time, but when I get like that, at the premiere in England the other night, my God, I was just this kind of beast that had been unleashed onto the red carpet. It was incredible."
Daniel Radcliffe at the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Press Conference
What did you learn the most about Harry in this film?Daniel Radcliffe: "For me, the difference in Harry this year, wherein the past…particularly the big change in Harry this year is his relationship with Dumbledore. Previously, he’s always been very much teacher/student. This year it kind of changes to being a general with his favorite lieutenant. Harry becomes a foot soldier in this movie and happy to be so. Also, in all the other ones, you sort of see Harry has been, 'Yeah, we’re going to get Voldemort. We’re going to kill him,' but he never really does anything towards it. Whereas this year he’s actually been trying and planning, and actually trying to actually do something towards the ultimate destruction of Voldemort. That’s the difference in Harry this year."
Has it finally set in with you that the Harry Potter series is ending?
Daniel Radcliffe: "It hadn’t until this week when everybody seems to be telling me that it’s almost over. I was actually kind of getting along quite nicely until people said, 'Well, so, your dream’s coming to an end.' To be honest, I think I speak for most of us when I say we’ve got a year left on seven. It’s a long way to go. Then, we’ve got to do lots of publicity and meet up with all of you lovely people twice more. Which is something I…That sounded sarcastic. It wasn’t. So there’s a long way to go to be honest, certainly for us. ...So I’m not contemplating the end too much too soon."
How do you handle the world of dating as a young twenty-something, in real life, without the aid of magic spells?
Daniel Radcliffe: "You know, I’m not really doing the dating thing. I don’t feel like I’m in the world of dating. I don’t feel like a young twenty-something in that sort of [way]. I don’t have that sort of life. I’m working. I’m happy to be working. It’s not a bad case of, I don’t have time to have a girlfriend.' I do. It’s just like everyone else, I suppose. It’s weird, you know, because people sometimes ask, 'Does being Harry Potter help you get girls?' I was nine before I did Harry Potter, so I don't know what it’s like to get girls without the aid of being Harry. So I don't know."
How much time did you spend working on balancing the light comedy and the heavy drama in this film?
Daniel Radcliffe: "I have to say, I think this is, for Ron, for my money, in terms of the comedy, this is Rupert [Grint’s] finest hour. He’s absolutely brilliant in this movie. It kind of reveals himself to be a fantastic practitioner of physical comedy. You balance the dramatics off as well, obviously wonderfully, but the scene on the broomstick in Quidditch - which is like something out of Buster Keaton or something - it’s absolutely brilliant, and I was belly-laughing. It was wonderful."
How difficult was your kissing scene with Bonnie Wright?
Daniel Radcliffe: “I saw the film again a couple nights ago at the premiere and I really watched it. And my God, my lips are like the lips of a horse, kind of distending away, independently away from my face, trying to encompass the lower half of hers. So I apologize, Bonnie."
Speaking of horses, you recently did Equus on Broadway. Do you have another stage project lined up?
Daniel Radcliffe: "Another stage project? Nothing specific, no. Nice segue by the way, using the horse to get that question. That was excellent. No, nothing specific at all. I would love to be back on the stage sometime maybe in the next two or three years, but there’s nothing planned at all. Obviously, I’d love to do it in England. And if Broadway would have me back, then that would be incredible because I had an amazing time here."
Can you talk about the scene in which you all raise your wands? Also, what does it mean to lose [spoiler deleted so let's say a major character]?
Daniel Radcliffe: "I think it’s actually a really, really moving moment, the moment when the wands are raised in salute and that the dark mark in the sky is slowly kind of eroded by this white light. It’s a wonderful moment. Yeah, it was a hard scene for me because at the time I had never lost anybody close to me. You can never hope to imagine what that feels like or what that must feel like. So I was trying to imagine the feelings and if it came a third of the way close to being real, then I’m happy with that, to be honest."
