Harry Potter series has somewhat gave a different meaning to the lives of 90s kid, where each one has ended being wishing for a Hogwarts Acceptance Letter at the age of 11.
Since the time, the first movie of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was out in the theatres, till today, we picture Harry Potter as none other than Daniel Radcliffe. Well, Daniel Radcliffe’s name is now synonymous with Harry Potter.
Back in 2015, the film’s casting director Janet Hirshenson revealed that Daniel Radcliffe had almost quit acting before he auditioned for the role as a child actor.
While talking about how the lead roles were cast in the film series, Janet told Huffington Post that the process was intense, since JK Rowling had demanded that only British actors be cast. She also added that Harry needed to be of a specific age and have green or blue eyes. “For Harry, to complicate things, I needed a blue or green-eyed kid because part of Harry is this green eyes or that was another elimination thing. We said, “Oh, drat! He’s great, but he has brown eyes,” she said.
Adding to this, Janet said that Daniel wasn’t actually interested being Harry Potter when they first approached him. “He wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to be an actor anymore. But director Chris Columbus and producer David Heyman were quite impressed with him. One evening, David Heyman the producer went to the theatre and he knew Daniel’s father, who was an agent… so the producer ran into Daniel and his dad and said to Daniel, ‘Why don’t you come in and audition? Think about it.’ So he said, ‘OK’”.
Talking about how Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were casted, she said that they stood out and were cast quickly. Hirshenson continued, “We must’ve had about six Harrys, only two or three Hermiones- there wasn’t a lot- and there was probably five-ish Rons. For Hermione, as soon as Emma came on, there were six of us in the screening room. We just gasped. It was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Like, ‘Whoaaa!’ She took up the screen.” She added that it was Grint’s face that sold him as Ron.
Talking about how Daniel was cast for the role, she revealed they had shortlisted two kids. “The other kid was terrific and very vulnerable and very Harry-looking, but besides that, Harry was going to be a very powerful kid, too. And Daniel had both sides. He was very vulnerable, but the other kid- it was like, he was not going to have the balls that Daniel has, to put it that way.”
Well, the last thing that drew the makers close to finalizing was the chemistry between the three of them, the chemistry that millions of Harry Potter fans love and enjoy watching on the screen. “After we chose, they pulled the three of them up to Chris’s office, not telling them they got the part, but they were standing there, the three of them, looking at each other, probably figuring, ‘I think we may be it.’ So they told them they had it. ‘Yay, yay, yay,’ and then they started chattering amongst themselves because they hadn’t known each other very much. Emma asked Daniel if he liked the books and he said, ‘Yeah, I like WWF better, and she did a harumph or sone Hermione thing that was so perfect, just as herself. ‘[Gasp] WWF!’ and we just all were like, ‘Whoa, this is them.”
Daniel Radcliff was last seen in an action comedy film, Guns Akimbo, which was released in September, 2019.
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