When looking at the later careers of child stars, it often becomes clear that they aren’t able to fully escape the shadow cast by the characters they first became known for playing. After all, it can be quite a difficult feat to accomplish when audiences see you grow up before their eyes in roles that many still associate with you. It takes a high degree of talent and a willingness to take on new, exciting projects to help shake off all the cinematic baggage you carry with you. Daniel Radcliffe is one such notable former child star who has managed to achieve this. After first skyrocketing to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist when he took on the character of Harry Potter, he has taken on many risky and challenging roles that redefined his presence as an actor. He did this even as he played young Harry across eight films, starting when he was just 11 years old and finishing just shy of his 22nd birthday. The final Potter film marked the end of a decades-long role and left many wondering what it is that he would do next.
What followed was not just his best work but some of the best work of any actor who has had to chart a new path after such a prolonged role. Radcliffe’s most recent outing is just another example of this as he takes on a wonderfully over-the-top role as the villain Abigail Fairfax in the adventurous new romantic comedy The Lost City. It may not get as much praise as it should, as comedy performances often don’t, but it shows the actor’s continued commitment to taking on each new character with his full energy. Radcliffe is not only great in this new film, but he stands out even amidst strong company. No matter who you are, when starring alongside the charming duo of Sandra Bullock, who plays a romance writer, and Channing Tatum, in rare himbo form as her cover model, it would have been far too easy for anyone to be swept aside. Not so for Radcliffe who shines even in the slimmest of scenes.
In the process of promoting the film alongside Bullock and Tatum, Radcliffe took part in a lovely interview with Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times. Towards the very end of the published conversation, he was asked the inevitable question about whether he would be up to returning to the Potter world for a film adaptation of The Cursed Child play. This comes after director Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two films in the series, said he would want to take it on with the original trio. Radcliffe, who took part in the recent 20th Anniversary Special of the films, said as an actor he was “getting to a point where I feel like I made it out of 'Potter' OK and I’m really happy with where I am now, and to go back would be such a massive change to my life.” He then said that such a return to the old character and world was “not something I’m really interested in doing right now.”
While certain to be a disappointing answer to many, such a response is incredibly refreshing and a sign of good things to come in Radcliffe’s future. As someone who grew up with the Harry Potter series and has now since grown past it, it is not good for the actor to always get roped back into playing this same character when there are so many other interesting roles for him to take on. To expect him to keep returning to something he, and frankly we, have moved past is a particularly restrictive type of fandom that stifles Radcliffe’s artistic potential as an actor. Those movies will always be there to watch, making it all the more important that it not be the only story through which its cast can express themselves. It not only would be deeply limiting, but it would have prevented Radcliffe from taking on some of his most exciting roles.
Take when he played a farting corpse with a heart of gold in Swiss Army Man. Don’t get me wrong, it was a role that was strange and abundantly silly. However, this was also what made it completely wonderful in how unexpected it was. The film was a deceptively emotional and complex one precisely because of what Radcliffe was able to bring to the role. We would have been the lesser for not getting to experience it in all its absurd glory had he been unwilling to make such a bold leap. Another such leap was in his hilarious role in the underrated comedy series Miracle Workers. The show saw Radcliffe playing different characters in different settings with a real sense of wit and charm as a part of an ensemble cast that also was similarly at the top of their game. Even when some of his more well-received serious efforts have been less successful on the whole, like with films such as Imperium and Escape From Pretoria, it is undeniable that Radcliffe has a lot of potential as an actor.
This is all to say that he is only scratching the surface of his capabilities to take on challenging new roles. Each character he has taken on is a further step that he otherwise wouldn’t have taken had he just fallen back on the series that he was most familiar with from a young age. Instead, Radcliffe is fast becoming a screen presence who shows that he is willing to constantly push himself as a performer into interesting new directions. It reveals that he is so much more than just the character he first played in Harry Potter all those years ago and that is something we should all embrace. He is right to not want to return to the magical world just yet as he has found his best work in all the projects that he has taken on since he left. His most iconic performances come when he gets to really sink his teeth into characters that are as far as possible from the one that made him famous, making his future an even more exciting one with whatever he chooses to do next.