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Just two years removed from being the face of one of the biggest franchises in movie history, Daniel Radcliffe, the diminutive, wide-eyed boy-wizard from the Harry Potter films, isn’t a kid anymore.
Radcliffe is now emerging as one of today’s most daring actors, taking on a variety of edgy roles. In between the eight “Potter” flicks, he starred nude on Broadway as a troubled young man who blinds horses in “Equus”. And in his new film “Kill Your Darlings,” opening this weekend, the 24-year-old stars as the poet Allen Ginsberg during his awkward time at Columbia University in 1945, when he rubbed elbows with a young Jack Kerouac and a brooding William S. Burroughs long before they grew into literary giants.
Set in New York in the 1940s, the plot includes a murder but the film is essentially Ginsberg’s coming-of-age story.
The script, probably one of Radcliffe’s toughest roles, also called for sobbing tears, and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to deliver. However, Radcliffe has been earning some excellent reviews for his work in the film.
He said: “Whenever you, as an actor, see in a script a line like ‘Allen weeps openly,’ you always go ‘Oh, Jesus’ because you’re going to have to cry.”
“Once I started, I was in danger of not stopping,” he said.
When asked if he felt performing in the film’s one gay sex scene was risky, Radcliffe brushed it off. Despite there being some buzz about the scene, the actor said that it didn’t feel like a risk at all.
“I totally understand that people are going to talk about it, because it’s salacious and whatever,” Radcliffe said, “but the thing that was much more nerve-wracking to me about this film was hitting all those big emotional beats.”
On growing up and moving on from his famous “Potter” character Radcliffe said: “I feel like I’ve had a great time on Harry Potter. But I think there was a lot of pent-up energy from the desire to play different parts.
“That’s why I relish the chance to do Allen Ginsberg, and put on horns, and things like that. I just loved it so much. Now that we’re all out in the world, I jump at the chance to do different types of roles…”
“Kill Your Darlings” is in general release now.
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