In Conversation

02 December 2008 01:43 BST

Radcliffe - the marriage proposals scare me

Daniel Radcliffe is slowly moving away from cloaks and wizardry; but his hordes of teenage fans seem unlikely to forget about a certain Mr Potter.

InTheNews' Martin Ashplant caught up with the 18-year-old at the UK premiere of his new film, December Boys, and asked him how he deals with being the world's most recognisable boy wizard.

Radcliffe has branched out in recent years. With the incredibly successful Harry Potter franchise coming to an end, not to mention the fact that the passing years are naturally limiting his ability to play a child character, the much-travelled teenager is seeking new paths on which to trek.

He has made a mark for himself on the West End, of that there is no doubt, with his de-robing appearance in Equus bringing him unexpected critical acclaim. But it is in films where Radcliffe's future surely lies, so his first non-Potter picture as an adult is perhaps a pivotal moment in his career.

In December Boys Radcliffe plays an Australian orphan, Maps, who has become something of a father figure to three younger boys and the actor revealed that he began to develop a "paternal" instinct towards Lee Cormie, Christian Byers and James Fraser on set.

And Radcliffe is indeed a relative movie veteran, having spent almost a decade making films, and he already appears to have a fanbase normally reserved for much older heart-throbs.

Speaking over high-pitched wails of "Daniel, I love you" from the gathered would-be suitors outside, Radcliffe acknowledged that the reaction he gets is something that takes a bit of getting used to.

"It's a bit mad, really," he told InTheNews.co.uk.

"It's kind of a crazy. There was one girl out there who had a poster saying 'marry me, Daniel' and she had 'Photoshopped' a picture of me with her in a wedding outfit. That's when it gets a bit scary.

"When you see people like that you tend to think 'oh well it's a bit ironic', but she was quite serious about it!"

There is an element of the Take That hero-worship about the girls who have grown up with Radcliffe, or more accurately Harry, and it could be that these girls, who are now teenagers, will also become grown women with their desires unchecked for that once fresh-faced magic-maker.

So will they still be following him around when he, and they, are 30 a la Mark Owen? "That's an incredibly scary thought," he admits.

Radcliffe is quite possibly the face du jour at the moment. His mere presence ensures a gaggle of photographers. So why, then, did he choose to make is first non-wizard-related film appearance in a low budget Australian film based on a novel written 50 years ago?

"One of the things is that Maps is very different to Harry and I wanted to prove to myself as much as everyone else that I could do something different," he said in a Q and A session alongside director Rod Hardy after the premiere.

What he said is true. But there are similarities between the characters beyond the mere fact they are both orphans and Radcliffe has yet to fully throw off the confines of Potter and all.

But then again, why should he? As he readily admits the whole experience has changed his life beyond all expectations. Indeed, he was due to start filming on the next Potter film the week after the premier and has one more to go after that.

"On Potter by the time I've finished I'll probably be 20 or 21 and I started when I was ten, so that'll be about half of my life up to that point," he says, without a hint of wizard-weariness in his voice.

"All the people and all the crew have worked on it from day one and when you've invested that much of your life as well as that much of your career into one project then it automatically becomes a project of passion - you want to make it the best film you possibly can."

Radcliffe obviously still has a little more sorcery left in him, but he is worldly-wise enough to know that childhood actors don't necessarily last the distance. On the evidence of December Boys there is more to come from this particular wizard and it will be fascinating to witness how this particular page-turner turns out in the end.

For our full review of December Boys click here
And to see the trailer click here