His preference for the fifth film was partly personal. Radcliffe highlighted Harry’s relationship with his godfather Sirius Black, played by Gary Oldman, and said Order of the Phoenix was probably his favourite of the eight films to make.
“We had a really, really good time making that one,” he said.
Radcliffe was considerably less conflicted when asked which Hogwarts house he belongs to. “Gryffindor, come on,” he replied.
He also discussed his relationship with former co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, saying the young cast had got on “very, very well” during production.
Radcliffe acknowledged that fans often expect the three central actors to remain inseparable away from the franchise. Their relationship, he suggested, is more complicated but permanently shaped by an experience few other people could understand.
“There’s always gonna be a recognition that only really the three of us have been through that very specific thing, and I think that’s gonna join us forever,” he said.
Why Daniel Radcliffe avoids social media
Radcliffe gave a characteristically concise response when asked whether he uses social media: “No.”
His explanation was less about privacy in the abstract than a fairly realistic assessment of his own temperament.
“I just know that if I were on Twitter, I would be the kind of person that gets into fights,” he said.
He also warned viewers that accounts claiming to belong to him were not genuine. Remaining offline has therefore spared Radcliffe both impersonation headaches and the daily challenge of resisting strangers with incorrect opinions.
The actor has found other modest ways to frustrate unwanted attention. While appearing in a play, he said he wore the same jacket and jeans when leaving the theatre for six months so that paparazzi photographs would appear to have been taken on a single night.
“When you have an opportunity to annoy the paparazzi or just win a tiny, petty victory over them, that’s fun,” he said.
Radcliffe said he divided his time between London and New York, although he spent most of it in London. His unusual mix of American sporting loyalties came through his girlfriend, who was from Flint, Michigan; he described their home as “a very big Red Wings house.”
How Radcliffe met his girlfriend on a film set
Radcliffe said he met his girlfriend while making Kill Your Darlings, the film in which he played poet Allen Ginsberg.
Their characters flirted in the movie, and the director asked the actors to improvise shortly after they had met in real life. That left the couple with an unusual record of the beginning of their relationship.
“There is this weirdly cool, sweet record of us meeting for the first time and flirting,” Radcliffe said.
At the time of the interview, he said he did not have a son and had no tattoos. He was interested in getting tattooed, but said the prospect of creating extra work for makeup artists had discouraged him.
Radcliffe also described himself as a competent but limited singer. He had performed in a Broadway musical and could “carry a tune,” though he drew a clear distinction between his ability and that of accomplished professional vocalists.
His more unexpected musical performance came when he rapped Blackalicious’s “Alphabet Aerobics” with The Roots. Radcliffe said he was nervous but knew the opportunity was unlikely to come around twice.
“I am not a naturally cool person,” he admitted. “I will never get an opportunity to do anything this cool ever again.”
Radcliffe addresses Wolverine and Elijah Wood rumours
One search asked whether Radcliffe was the new Wolverine, a casting rumour that has followed him despite the absence of any confirmation in the interview.
Rather than issue a routine denial, he announced a fictional production in which Hugh Jackman would be placed in a hot wash and emerge as the noticeably shorter Radcliffe.
“So yes, I’m very happy to announce that here,” he joked.
The actor was equally amused by comparisons with Elijah Wood. Radcliffe said the two were not related and had met only once, when Wood visited the Harry Potter set.
He added that people frequently mistook him for the Lord of the Rings actor. On one job, a makeup artist reportedly insisted she had seen Radcliffe in a trailer for a film with Vin Diesel — apparently confusing him with Wood.
Another search attempted to connect Radcliffe with Viggo Mortensen, prompting the obvious suspicion: “Does this person think I’m Elijah Wood?”
There was still stranger material. Radcliffe appeared genuinely puzzled by the question of whether he had played Moaning Myrtle, the Hogwarts ghost portrayed by Shirley Henderson.
“We are not the same human being,” he clarified, usefully closing one of the internet’s less urgent investigations.
How Daniel Radcliffe became an actor
Radcliffe attributed the beginning of his career largely to luck, saying he had been in the right place at the right time before discovering that he loved acting.
He also corrected the simplified story of how he was cast as Harry Potter. According to Radcliffe, his parents had already rejected an invitation for him to audition because the original arrangement involved seven films being made in Los Angeles, which they considered too disruptive.
The terms later changed to two films shot in London. When Radcliffe and his parents then happened to sit behind a Harry Potter producer at the theatre, the coincidence helped persuade them to reconsider.
“Maybe fate is trying to tell us something,” Radcliffe recalled his parents thinking.
His education subsequently took place largely on set, despite his affiliation with the City of London School. He studied history, religion and philosophy, and English literature, but did not attend university.
Radcliffe said higher education would have been a “sideways step” because he already knew the field in which he wanted to work. His childhood was highly unusual, but he nevertheless described it as happy and “surprisingly normal.”
The internet’s questions ranged from the biographical to the existential, eventually asking: “What is Daniel Radcliffe?”
“Daniel Radcliffe is mostly water and carbon,” he replied.
After years of public interest in his height, relationships, career and resemblance to other compact fantasy-film stars, it may be the only answer broad enough to survive every search query.
