From The Vault: Daniel Radcliffe

this is a global player original podcast Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure. As we ease ourselves into January and shake off the last of the festive fog, What a lovely moment to revisit a conversation that really does reward a slower pace and a bit of reflection. Since 2019, we've been lucky enough to sit down with people whose lives and work have shaped our own. in ways big and small. And occasionally there's an interview that just lingers a little longer.

than the others after the recording light goes off this week we're returning to one of those moments from the vault a thoughtful gently revealing conversation with daniel radcliffe who points out himself that we have sort of watched him grow up recorded six years ago it finds him at a point of transition looking back on that childhood lived in the spotlight but looking forward to a career he is determined to pursue on his own terms He will always be an actor, best known for playing.

that part but his career subsequently spans global blockbusters independent films theater and some very unexpected choices in between yet what makes this interview so compelling is not the fame but the candor The calmness, the normalness, as his reflections on growing up under those extraordinary pressures, the people who kept him grounded throughout, and the curiosity that continues to drive his work, as well as the sense of responsibility he feels towards.

the audiences who grew up with him. He's a lovely bloke, in other words. If you heard it the first time, you'll know it's worth another listen. And if you're listening for the first time, then you're about to hear a conversation that is honest, warm, and unexpectedly... moving just a nice way to ease yourself back into the swing of things as the new year unfolds this is a global original podcast

Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure with me, James O'Brien, a podcast project conceived chiefly to allow me to spend a little bit more time than is normally available with people with whom I'd like to spend a little bit more time. Thank you. A category into which Daniel Radcliffe slots effortlessly. And we will move on shortly to the fact that you seem to have breached the space-time vortex with the amount of work that you've got.

imminently arriving on our screens and indeed our stages but full disclosure usually begins at the beginning which in your case is quite a tricky one because you you were arguably the most recognizable child on the planet During your childhood. And as an interviewer, I'm not really lacking in confidence, but when I'm talking to somebody like you, I kind of can't think of a single question that you haven't already answered at least a million times. Right.

They come up occasionally, but it is hard. Yes, I can imagine that it is. Yeah, I mean, but it's... Yeah, I don't know, but don't feel bad about it. It's not that I feel bad about it necessarily, but it's more your time and energy, isn't it? No, but there's limited questions you can ask a person, isn't it? I mean, yeah. Also, I think there's the thing of... It's just an odd thing to, you know, talking about yourself is not a...

sort of very natural thing to do, especially if you find, like, the people who just are fine with talking about themselves for days and days are slightly odd. So I think that there's... You've not heard my radio show. No, no, no, but like...

I know what you mean. I think there's something about doing press where there's an imbalance between how interesting everybody else finds me and how interesting I find myself. Because I've just lived my life and it's just been... my life so it's always like I suppose odd to me to

try and then make it or try and or to realize that it is interesting to other people beautifully put actually um because of course it is although we don't know a great deal about you which is presumably deliberate i mean there's there's always talk of attention and being followed around by paparazzi

But oddly, I think watching your life and career, you do exercise agency. You do have quite a lot of control over how much of you is out there. Yeah, and I think you have to, and I think there's a balance to, you know, look, I'm a... public person who after a certain point that was you know consensual like after a certain point I was you know contributing to that and wanted it to be the case because being you know famous or whatever allows me to do my job and allows me to

do my job in a certain way that gives me a lot of control over what I do. So I think there's, and you realise that, you know, I hate when I see actors go into interviews and clearly not. want to talk at all i i when people are just being like oh press is press and you shouldn't like the idea that like doing press is selling out is just idiotic but i do think there is also like

You don't need to tell people everything. You don't need to talk about... And that also was like a journey of learning that I could say no to things. That's actually been a huge... I saw a photo shoot the other day when I was like 15 and I am just... tangled up in the wires of headphones and have the headphones on. Oh man, that was at the time when I didn't realise I could say, no, I don't want to do that in a photo shoot. Because you're, I mean...

You like to please, I think it's fair to say, isn't it? So I interviewed you briefly a few years ago and I was struck by just how charming you are. You recorded a little message for my children, which you absolutely didn't have to do. But you also... never ask normally in these circumstances but

You know, the kids at the time. Kind of, quite a big cross. Yes, exactly that. But, I mean, you're obviously a very good actor, so of course you could have been acting, but it didn't seem to be done under duress or with a sense of, oh, here we go again. There was a...

There was a fundamental decency there. I think that I do feel genuinely lucky to, and appreciate what a... crazy amazing when a lot of not all the time but sometimes when kids meet me it is like they are meeting father christmas like it is it is such a specific childhood place that these films set for people

and without me to sound too worthy and i will sound a bit worthy when i say this you i think there is a responsibility that comes with that and you know i and i completely like i have active friends who will be out and if someone comes up to them for an autograph um they say no

And I think that is completely within their rights to do that. People would argue and have argued that it is within my rights to do that too. I don't feel like I can in the same way. I do feel like you have to do a bit more when it... when you're famous for something like Potter. But being part of people's childhood.

As opposed to just being someone that we saw on Saturday night. Right, and it's something that, like, if they, you know, I'm aware, you know, I have not got every interaction with every fan I've ever met. Perfect, I'm sure. But there is an awareness of, like, if you're meeting a seven-year-old, you know you may not remember meeting that seven-year-old in a few years but he will remember meeting you and that one interaction that you have with them can

cast a, rather than a seven-year-old, more likely a 20-year-old who's watched the films already, the interaction they have with you can cast their watching of the films in an entirely new light. and you never want to damage something that's that special to people. Yes, you mentioned learning. You're not the same person you were.

when you did that photo shoot as a 15-year-old. But it occurs to me there's not really anyone you can learn from. This is a journey you've been on. Right. I mean, I think you learn from the people you have. So you learn from the people that... But in terms of a precedent or an example to follow. No, there's not really anything. There's no one you can ring up and say, what did you do when that happened? Because I'm really struggling with this bit of it.

Yeah, no, there's not. There isn't anyone like that that I can think of or... But I did have older actors, so that was, I suppose, the closest thing. I remember Gary Oldman talking to me about certain parts of the industry and what they might make you feel. And also, he was one of the few people that would like...

From outside, my agents or my dad, Gary was one of the few people that talked to me about the position I was going to be in after Potter and how to, you know, I can't say it on the radio, but he was like, he has...

I was like, he said, you know, you are going to have bleep you money. And you should, you know, basically said, like, make the three you want. Don't do what other people think. And, you know, which was sort of something I think I was going to do anyway. But it's nice to have it from someone like that as well going.

you know, to actually sort of say it to you. But yeah, there's not a huge amount of precedent. But I would say there's not a... For every person who gets famous young... every situation is completely different and the fact that I made it out like okay and relatively sane and relatively healthy is that's I mean, it's a lot of luck. It's luck and judgment, I suppose. And you mentioned your dad. Family must be absolutely crucial to this. Yes, 100%. Feet on ground business.

My parents were both, I was also really lucky because, you know, they were both in the industry and my mum was a casting director, my dad was a literary agent. But they'd both been actors and not had a very good time doing it. I mean, they'd had fun and good memories, but ultimately hadn't been kind to them. So they changed jobs. And...

They had the perfect amount of knowledge about the industry to guide me and to be really helpful. But they weren't so in it that they were jaded by it. And then they were still excited for me. So, yeah, I really I lucked out with them with the fact. that we filmed it in the UK and I got to you know when I think of what growing up as a famous kid must be like in LA I do think

Like, I don't know how you would... Well, some of the stories are apocalyptic. I go insane now when I'm in LA for too long. I don't know what it would be like if you... It's not normal. And you've got 12-year-olds surrounded by grown-ups telling them that they can have whatever they want and do whatever they want. I mean, yeah.

It's mad. So I'm always loathe to, you know, a lot of the time people want me to comment on like Lindsay Lohan or Justin Bieber or anything like that because, you know... because there's like a narrative growing up around all of us which which is which is in one way very pleasant which is like they're the child stars you like did good and made it out okay yes but actually there is no i'm always loathe to

Because there is no blueprint for being famous. No, that's the point, isn't it? Right, and I think what it's like to... suddenly come up against a load of if you don't know who you are and what your values are by the time you get to a certain point you're going to get to an age and the world will be presenting you with what they think you are and what they think your values are and it's very hard to

to not just give into that and think oh that's clearly what i should be doing people used to say to me all the time like oh if i was being if i was famous i'd be living your life way differently in that i don't i don't do a huge amount with my money i'm not particularly attractive and everyone thinks that they would and there are moments where i go man am i really

bad at being famous even worse at being rich yeah but terrible I understand that what was the craziest thing that was written about you when you were still sort of forming? Because I presume it takes a degree of maturity to be able to rise above it and find it ridiculous. I mean, yeah, the ridiculous stuff was always very funny to us. Was it good?

they would write things weirdly the thing that most affected me most when I was young was and I didn't really I was spared from it because they didn't show it to me but some newspaper

probably the one we're all thinking, went after my mom and dad at one point and wrote a really scathing article about them and how they're pushy show parents. And if you add all the details up about they had been actors, they're still in the industry. Yeah, you... come to that conclusion but they're just not and that you know they would they would say to me every year like

If you want to stop, you can. You know, they were always very... But I remember that was the first moment of going like, oh, this is like me doing this now affects other people in my life. That seems unfair and weird. Because you developed, you'd got, you were working before you got the big...

Have you seen the new David Copperfield yet? No, apparently it's great. That was my first job of any kind. Playing young David. Yes, playing young David. And in what was an incredible cast as well. It's Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith. Ian McNeese, Paul Whitehouse, Pauline Quirk, Emilia Fox. It's a crazy cast.

And so, yeah, I got to do that. And I haven't seen the new one. I think you'll enjoy it. It's absolutely brilliant. It's very different from your version. Oh, yes, I'm sure. Where did the bug come from then? Because you mentioned... your family were both actors but

Where did you first feel the thrill? Was it on a school stage or was it... I mean, I remember I turned around to my mum after, like, a panto that I saw when I was five. And I was like, I want to be an actor. And she said, no, you don't. Because, again, not a great time. Sure. And then...

And then I cycled through a million other things. Then I wanted to be there. It wasn't like I was, oh God, I mean, just like what kids imagine jobs to be. So firefighter, astronaut, you know, marine, lots of things that I was never.

going to do but and then that's what's interesting is I am one of the few people that probably got the bug I got was actually for just being on set more than it was for acting or for films themselves like I have this weird conversation a lot of the time where like I often feel massively um under-informed on a film set because people will be talking about film and about films I've seen and all this stuff and famous films. I remember when I did The Swiss Army Man with Paul Dano and The Daniels.

They all talk about film. I was just like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know any of these movies. I really need to watch them. This is terrible. But I had this moment of realising that they had all fallen in love with film and that was their reason for getting into film. I was suddenly on a film set and I was like, wow, I love this. I guess I better love acting and film and all the rest of it too. Because I immediately knew that this is where I wanted to be.

and I did I enjoyed acting and I enjoyed doing scenes with people and that was really fun um but it was actually just the being in the middle of a film set I still find is just like an exhilarating

enthralling place to be. Do you have the show-off gene, then? It doesn't sound as if you do, necessarily. Not particularly. Actually, like, a huge... stumbling block for me I'm doing a play at the moment and we've worked it out but I have a real problem looking at just turning out front and doing stuff because I think of the audience as being the camera they are the thing that observes you

never look into that thing that's where like my being on film I think it screwed me up I mean I think I've got a little bit of the show off gene but not it's not over developed And I think what happened then after getting Potter is because I know that what most, and you mentioned this earlier with the need to please. Yes.

I know what most people are expecting of somebody who... I think I said you like to please, not that you need to please. There's a crucial distinction. No, no, no. You see the difference, of course. But then what was, I think, one of the places that comes from is... The fact that I know what everyone thinks a famous young person should be like, and the image they have is pretty terrible. And so I think I want to, with every moment that I get with someone, just...

prove that, like, I am not that thing that you thought I was going to be. How do normal... Through your sort of teens and twenties then, how would normal friendships work? Given that you were usually away, you were usually on set, your existence was ridiculous by any objective measure. And yeah, you clearly like... talking and you enjoy company and you're not you're not no sense of you being aloof so how did that how did that play out well i mean you know

Film sets are fantastic for that. And, you know, a lot of my friends were people on set and film sets are fantastic places to just hang out if you want to hang out and just like chat to some interesting people. And then it's over, and then most of them go back to their families and stuff. So, yeah, I think the... The two best friends I made as a teenager were people I met. One of them is my friend Jess, who is a physicist who we both met at...

A party that we had both gone to because our respective best friends wanted to make out with each other. And we were both brought along as weird men. And then we ended up sort of chatting for the rest of the night. And I think she was, I think one of the reasons Jess and I stayed so close friends is that she has always been, and is still, God bless her, incredibly understanding about.

my life, but at 14, most kids were not. Most kids were like, well, if you can't hang out with us, then I'm just literally going to forget you exist. Whereas Jess was always able to go, you have a crazy life, clearly. I'm going to see you when I can. So I think... Yeah, and generally speaking, friendships is always just like hanging out at...

It's like you said at the beginning, actually. You know, you're fascinating to everybody else, but to you, you're just me. It's just the life I've lived. I mean, it's generous of you, really, to appreciate that everybody else finds it riveting.

oh, right, I suppose the fact that I'm sort of even vaguely, like, do normal things is so fascinating in its weird way. Do you do sliding doors? Do you ever think, well, what if Potter hadn't happened? What would I, I mean, because, I mean, you'd probably, I think, still want to be an actor, but you wouldn't be getting offered necessarily.

the quality of the work that you have been offered? I mean, no, very unlikely. I think the... It's not so much that I look back and go, oh, what would have happened if? It's more that I see things about... my life or the way i am or anything like that and then go back to potter and go oh is that because of potter and because of the things that happened there or would that have been is that just inborn in me and would i have got that anyway and that's a those

are always the both interesting and very frustrating questions because there's just no answer. Have you been lonely? In life? Oh, God, yes, of course, absolutely. I think particularly sort of towards the... End of Potter, but I wouldn't have called it loneliness. I wouldn't have known what to call it. It was more just, but looking back.

I was coming to the end of something massive and I had no idea how my life was going to go after that. And I think that was probably really frightening for me at that point. But it's been sort of... You know, if you had told me 10 years, because we're sort of 10 years on from 10 years on now, we're at that point. I know, it's crazy. Well, I'm now, somebody, somebody...

I'm not on Twitter, but my girlfriend does show me bits and pieces. And when it was my birthday last year, apparently somebody tweeted. Daniel Radcliffe is 30 and you are in a nursing home. It's a bit close to home. I am just like a terrible yardstick now for everyone's age. You're everybody's sort of portrait in the attic. Oh my God. But... but genuine loneliness yeah but like if I if you've been able to if you told me

10 years on since Potter, I would have made like, I don't know, I've probably done 10 or so films and, you know, three or four or five plays. And, you know, yeah, I would have bitten your hand off if you told me I would be stoked. And presumably at that age, when it all came to a head, you were too young to appreciate the financial security side of things as well, because that's...

I'm generally not something you worry about. I'll never be able to fully appreciate the financial security aspect of it because I've always will have had some degree of it. It's an amazingly fortunate. position to be in and I I'm very lucky that I you know and again

I can sit here and say money is, I'm lucky for money not to be a motivating factor in my life because I have it. And that is, you know, but it's... yeah i i think somebody also i was also very lucky to have people around me who gave me a good attitude towards money um and who were always like you know it should give you

room to maneuver and do the things you want and that's what it does ultimately that's more the thing it gets you more than any material possession is it gives me particularly autonomy over my career and what i want to do next and what i want to do and doing anything at all um is, you know, I'm not...

I don't just have to charge into things because I need the money. Yeah, because you've got a tax bill to pay or something like that. I still do my taxes. No, I know you pay taxes. I'm not looking for a scoop. I just... I may have done a couple of things in my career because I had a tax filter phase. I was just drawing on personal experience. And again, it's another example of you've only got knowledge of the life that you've lived. Right. So when you came out of the series and you started...

thinking about what sort of parts you wanted to play. And I've got a fairly good knowledge of what you've done. And like a lot of people who are nearly 50, there's almost a degree of... I don't know, it's a weird form of affection when you watch the career of someone who moved you and also moved your children as an actor.

I don't think you've put a foot wrong yet, have you? I mean, everything you've done has been... Look, there's nothing I wouldn't have done. Even The Flatulent Corpse had enormous charm, that film. The Flatulent Corpse is a film called Swiss Army Man for anyone who does not know what the hell...

we have started talking about, is like one of the most beautiful films I've ever made. Yes, it really is. It has been not right to me, but it does. It really is. But how did you know? Because, I mean, to be honest, if... Well, I used to be a show business journalist. I'd have had great...

fun writing up before the film came out i'd have had great fun writing up what an appalling error you'd made and what a dreadful career cul-de-sac you'd just gone a hundred miles an hour up but you got that script you draw you you have people who can advise you but it

How did you see the magic there? With that script, I was just like, this is very... clearly written by people who are brilliant like it wasn't it wasn't you know because I've read weird scripts as well weird scripts that amount to nothing and are weird for the sake of it and and with that one it was just like oh no this is all being done for such a clear reason and it shouldn't work but it does

And then when you speak to those guys and you see their music videos, you're like, okay, no, you've got something going on here. We should do this. But generally speaking, you know, I am... As I've always said, I'm lucky to be able to pick and choose the things I do. I...

I don't think of the things I do as being weird, but I have been told they are so many times now that I think I have to accede that they are in some way unexpected or weird, but I do think I get a... Unexpected isn't the same as weird.

No, and some of them's full-out weird. Like Swiss Army Man, that can be in the weird category, fine. Yeah, maybe. But I think, yeah, I mean, I think... I think I get an unnatural amount of credit for this because people saw me do one thing for so long that then seeing lots of different things, whereas I think most actors, like if you look at, I don't know.

off the top of my head adam driver just incredibly varied in sort of the roles and things that he does and and and i think most actors um want that also i think i have to find what my you know i'm not In some ways, I'm not a conventional kind of leading man, hero archetype. So I've had to, but that was the thing that people knew me as initially. So I've sort of got to find other ways of being, where else can I sit in films?

And where else can I be, you know? And plays. And we better move shortly on to the current sort of avalanche of work that is about to land at our feet. But before that, you're an intellectual, aren't you? I don't know about that. I like thinking about things. You can't do it. I mean, yes, exactly. I remember the last time I interviewed you and we touched on some of the stuff you were reading. And it was clear that you're...

You like to feel your brain stretched to its absolute limit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And in a way, your work is the kind of acting equivalent of the intellectual... Totally, and particularly, particularly, and I'm not...

trying to force a segue, but particularly with this play at the moment because it is such a... Well, Beckett is. I mean, if you're uncomfortable looking out at the audience and, you know, Beckett is, even for the brightest... brains in history it can be quite impenetrable and the piece you're doing is

even by the standards of Samuel Beckett, is tricky. Yes, it's... So why? When that call came and you sat and thought and wrestled, am I going to do this? What was it that called to you? Part of that was very much the sort of... headier side of it because I did read that

and go, I understand enough of this to know that I don't understand it, but I'm fascinated by it. That's kind of what I was trying to say in my own clumsy way. No, no, no, that's exactly right. Yeah, and... you know and oh my god thank god i'm not doing it on my own because i wouldn't have been able to but richard jones our director um and and and uh alan cumming and

to be able to work on this material with them and to sort of unpack it and work out what all these things mean it has been really really fun and but it was the sort of the challenge of it was something i wanted to do and also i found it really funny like i did

find even reading it i was like oh no i can see how this could be very very funny in a very dark way then you're definitely an intellectual because to laugh out loud at beckett my old english teacher would would want to sort of wrap you up and take you home at this point it's such a

You get it. And you can work towards getting it. Right, yeah, totally. You watch something like Crap's Last Table and you spend 50% of your mind is wondering what the hell is going on and the other 50% is just conscious of being in the presence of something very special. Something incredible, yeah. Endgame's not dissimilar, is it, in a way, to that? beautiful conversation about

cycles and ending and concepts. I think he said at one point that it's not a play, it's a situation. And I sort of dispute that slightly because there are narrative things that happen in it, but it's... Yeah, it's a play about two people that hate each other but need each other and can't escape each other but are desperate to be alone but can't be alone. It's about sick people needing each other. And somehow in that, we hopefully...

make people laugh with jokes about stuffed dogs and flea powder. It's on at the old Vic at the moment. Do you get a stage fright? No, not stage fright in the, oh, I can't go on kind of way. I think, yeah, you get a little bit every night of that sense of like, oh, what a tonight. It all goes wrong.

With Beckett, the audience wouldn't know. Apart from the real purists in the audience, they've got the takes off by heart. You could almost do anything in a Beckett play and then just style it out. You're almost right and we almost have. No, I'm sure. but we um yeah no you're that is that is very true they wouldn't know you do sort of have to just but it's almost it's not so much even um things going wrong with the lines it's just like some Some days it feels bad. And some days you just feel...

Like, you're terrible up there. And I've had it in every play I've ever done. Like, you'll have six great shows a week, and then there's that one where you're just like, what am I doing? I'm not doing anything right. I can't get it. But those, yeah. It's probably scary when you stop feeling like that because that's probably when things are going to go wrong and you're going to be too out.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I watched Alan Cumming get nervous the other day before our first show, and, you know, he's the most accomplished, one of the most accomplished stage actors or actors of any kind I've ever worked with. So I was like, okay, if you're still getting a bit nervous, I can too. That's all right. Although you took Equus from the West End to Broadway, so your own...

I like the fact that you could remove Potter from your CV and you'd still be among the most accomplished 30-year-old actors around. Yeah, it is really nice. Yes, I wouldn't have... Sorry. I would maybe not have had the opportunity to begin with, but... It doesn't matter.

I mean, you wouldn't have gone from the West End to Broadway if you'd been shy. That's true. Yeah, that's very good. Technical term. Technical term. Yeah, they're not, they don't do pity. No, precisely that. And the new film, Escape from Pretoria, in which, and I don't know if this is an...

annoying observation for you. You look much older than you've ever looked before. Oh, great. No, that's good, actually. Is it? Yeah, I think so. I think it's time to, yeah, I'm ready to start looking at slightly older and playing slightly older characters. I feel like that's appropriate. And is that a real beard?

Yes, it is. Congratulations. Thank you, I know. I'm clean shaven at the moment, which is devastating for the play. So this is a prison break thriller, but it comes out while you're on... Well, it comes out in March, actually, but you're still on stage at the Old Vic, and the second series... of miracle workers has just dropped on Netflix as well. So to people outside the industry, how have you done all this in the last six months?

Yes, so it does look like I'm just crazily productive and doing three jobs at once. This is actually, I shot... The Miracle Workers series that is coming out now on Sky Comedy was the one I shot in. On Sky Comedy? I think Sky Comedy. Yeah, no worries. My 13-year-old's in charge of the remote control and she absolutely loves it. Okay, no, it's great. The first series is excellent.

The second series is coming out at the moment in the States. So the first series that is out here at the moment was about a year and a half ago. Escape from Pretoria was shot about a year ago. And then we've just shot the second series of Miracle Workers. And then now I'm doing the play. And then a movie I shot two years ago will be coming out in about a month. So it's basically like...

two years worth of work is coming out in about a three-month period. So you will, everybody listening, I'm sorry. You will probably get a lot of me on various shows for a little while. But you have no control over anything. Disappear from your life. Because of the edit and because of the industry mashup. And in fact, actually it's much like...

I feel confident that the two movies are probably both really annoyed they're coming out so close together. Of course. So, yeah, it's not... It's just the way it shakes out sometimes. It's not your fault. No, no. So Miracle Workers is a fascinating piece of work because, again, not unlike... A couple of things that we've mentioned already in this. I do wonder how you read that script and thought, yes, this is very special. Well, that was actually based on a book that I had read.

eternal optimism and slight hubris went to the writer and said are you got any plans with this could could i adapt it and maybe do something with it and he he just went like oh yeah well we're thinking of adapting it and i was like okay

Hands off, you can adapt it. You're a much better writer than me. And he was, yeah, he's a guy called Simon Rich, who I had that meeting where I basically told him how much I loved his book. And he said, well, you know, if we ever do anything with it, we'll let you know.

And then it was about a year after that that he called with the idea to do it as a limited series. And he wasn't interested in, and nor was I, doing something that then runs for years and years and years. So the thing we... which TBS, the American channel, allowed us to do.

is do an anthology series every year takes place in a different setting at different times so i essentially get to make a comedy series with my favorite comedy writer every year for the next few years with a different character pretty exciting pretty great isn't it um so you just said

something which I've written down here ask him about books oh yes but not about what you're reading I have a theory that you because you just mentioned that you would flirting with the idea of writing that adaptation yourself. Yes. I presume there's a draw somewhere with the collected works of Daniel Radcliffe, which is the next thing that you'll share with the world. I don't know. I mean, I'd love to... Do you write? I do write.

Yeah, I used to write poetry and a lot of it was very bad, you know, teenage and stuff, but it was good for me to do. And then I realized I don't think I have the discipline to write.

novels or even short stories um but i do think scripts is what i i i is where i can focus my efforts and yeah I'd love to write something and then direct it I was going to add directing to that because when you talk about the enthusiasm other people had for film that's where it naturally I love being on film set and as a director you are in the middle of such an amazing group of people.

yeah I just I would I remember Gary Oldman again actually saying to me that as a director you're being asked to make a creative decision every second of the day and how exciting that is and yeah I would definitely that would I would I'm desperately trying to remember who else I interviewed who spoke of Gary Oldman in such glowing terms, but not just as a brilliant actor, but as someone who took a genuine warm interest in other actors and younger actors in particular, like a kind of...

Like a kind of mentor. Yeah, very much so. I mean, he definitely was a sort of, you know, he was on films three to five and was hugely influential on me in that time. So what... sort of stuff do you write? What have you got? What are you pitching at the moment? It's all sort of dark comedy stuff. I can make some calls if you want. Okay. We might hang down the line. Actually, there might be one of them. Yeah, there's one that is sort of...

People have always said, like, you know, there's always that thing of, like, write what you know. And having such an odd, rarefied life, I'm always like, can people really relate to anything about my life? But in the last couple of years, I did find an idea for a story, not such about my life, but actually...

sort of about it involves a press junket and that sort of stuff so I do think there's stories to be told about the industry in general and I would love to have a go at that because I think it's something I can speak to authenticity and also be funny about hopefully and when you you mentioned having a meeting with the um with the miracle workers writer simon riches does anyone ever say no when you seek a meeting with them uh

You don't like questions like this, do you? Not yet. Or maybe if they did, it was all like, oh, they're not available. So I probably wouldn't have been told if anyone did turn down to me. But I don't think I ever really... Actually, to be honest, I think Simon is maybe the only... person i've ever like requested me because you loved the book so yeah oh the only other person i tried to meet once to talk to was guillermo del toro to talk about something and he took my call and

was the kindest man i've never worked with him i don't i think we maybe met once but like i had an idea for a script that because i heard he was doing and he's And I pitched him like my idea and he heard me out and was so sweet and was so nice. And then at the end of the call told me, they've got a very established.

very famous writer that is already working on it. And I was like, cool, I'm much cheaper. But thank you for your honesty. But he was so nice. He did not have to take it at all. No, but I suppose that's, you know, in every industry there are... good people and bad people. I've been really lucky. I haven't had many of the bad ones.

I've heard lots of horror stories. How long is Endgame running for? Till March 26th. March 26th, by which time Escape from Pretoria will be out. Yes. And the new film will also be knocking at the door of your local multiplex. Miracle Wars will be over.

I suppose it will. So what's next for you? Do you know at this point? The next film to come out is a film called Guns Akimbo, which is crazy. And then the trailer is online. It'll leave you to your own devices. And then time off. Is it? Then I will be taken.

a little bit of time. Yeah, that'll be nice. I've been pretty much, I've been go, go, go since like last September. So I'm going to be happy by the time we... And final question, which is a weird one actually, but last time you came in, which must be seven or eight years ago because my kids were tiny. And...

You spoke about what you were reading, and I just searched my phone to check the date that this was happening, or to check the time that this interview was happening, and I put a note to myself. I said, send him a copy of Saki, H.H. Munro. Have you read any Saki? I have read some Saki. I was feeling very, very, I don't know why, but you must have mentioned some books last time and I thought, well, he'd love Saki. No, I do, absolutely. Those are some of the first short stories I read.

oh, these are really funny and weird. Yes, exactly. They're right up your straw. Oh, no, that's great. Good. Thank you so much. Well, it's the thought that counts. No, it was very much the thought that counts. Thank you, Daniel. Cheers, mate. This has been a Global Player original production.