We’ll admit, we were a little worried that Daniel Radcliffe would never be able to shake off Harry Potter. He’s a great actor (and they’re great movies) but when you grow playing such a famous role it can be hard to differentiate between actor and character.
Radcliffe has been praised for his performance in The Cripple of Inishmaan
Even Radcliffe himself was worried that he would never be able to move his career forward once the movies finished: “It was not making me as happy as I want it to. It is not a real pressure but it is a pressure of living with the thought, ‘Oh, what if all these people are saying I am not going to have a career? What if they are all going to be right and will be laughing and I will be consigned to a bunch of ‘Where are they now?’ lists?” he explained.
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Fortunately, Radcliffe wasn’t going to sit around and wait for that to happen. He proactively began seeking work once the Harry Potter films finished and chose roles that couldn’t have been further removed from the one that made him famous. Starring in horror film The Woman in Black as well as launching his theatrical career with plays including Equus and The Cripple of Inishmaan immediately showed that he was serious about moving away from the franchise.
Radcliffe has successfully established himself as an actor in his own right now and has some very exciting projects on the horizon. In 2015 he will appear as Igor alongside James McAvoy in a new version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The last big Hollywood version of the novel came out in 1994 and starred Robert DeNiro as The Creature and Kenneth Branagh as Frankenstein, will McAvoy and Radcliffe’s version be new and improved? Can they take on the Hollywood heavyweights and win?
Post-Frankenstein Radcliffe has been cast as Washington Roebling in the Douglas McGrath directed Brooklyn Bridge. The film looks at Roebling, the eldest son of architect John A. Roebling, who is tasked with completing the building of his father’s Brooklyn Bridge. This one’s still in pre-production, with no-one cast other than Radcliffe so far, but it sounds like it’s going to be a serious, but exciting, project.
Daniel Radcliffe as Igor on the set of his new film Frankenstein
Tokyo Vice, also in pre-production, promises to be based on less weighty material than Brooklyn Bridge. Radcliffe will appear as a journalist working out in Japan, who takes on one of Tokyo’s most powerful mob bosses. Directed by Anthony Mandler, this one looks like it may be a little outside of Radcliffe’s comfort zone. We’re not used to seeing him star in action movies, how do you think he will fare?
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