Harry is wizard of West End
posted by Jas, 02/28/07
Dan told the Evening Standard that despite his nerves, he wants to pursue a stage career when the Harry Potter film series is completed.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has admitted his West End debut — in which he appeared nude in front of a first night audience packed with actors, TV stars and politicians — was a terrifying experience. 17-year-old Radcliffe told Daily Mail sister paper Evening Standard that despite his nerves, he wants to pursue a stage career when the Harry Potter film series is completed.

Speaking after his performance in Equus at the Gielgud Theatre, he said: "Tonight was good but it was terrifying. We've been doing previews for two weeks and I thought this would be just another show. But when we got to the last hour I thought 'this is really big'. "It was scary but there's so much goodwill backstage and to be on stage with Richard Griffiths helped."

Asked about performing nude, Radcliffe said: "I really don't care about it that much. The nudity serves the purpose of the image at the end of the play. "The implication in the press was that it was going to be quite gratuitous but it;s not. After doing the first couple of previews I really didn't care anymore."

The role of Strang, the boy sent to a psychiatric institution after blinding several horses, appears to have taken a far greater toll than that of the boy wizard. Radcliffe admitted: "It can be hard not to take it home with you and I especially found that during the rehearsal period. "But in a way that's good because the more you can stay in character, as long as it doesn't damage you in any way, it can only be a positive thing."

He said he would like to continue acting in the West End. "Being on stage is the most exhilarating experience I've ever had. Film is fantastic but the rush you get from being on stage is just amazing," he revealed. Shaffer, now aged 80, said: "Daniel was marvellous considering this is his first ever performance on the stage. "Richard Griffiths was terrific as well. I'm very pleased with the production. It's deeply exciting."

Hollywood star Christian Slater said: "The work that Daniel did on stage was incredible, extraordinary. I think he was brave, adventurous and courageous. "He's a phenomenon and I would certainly love to work with him." Outside the theatre, fans gathered to heap praise Radcliffe. Among them, Hannah Brown, 16, from Woodford, Essex, said: "I thought he was brilliant in Harry Potter and I thought he was great in this as well. He showed so much emotion."

Equus reviews II
posted by Jas, 02/28/07
More reviews of Equus from various sources

From The Star
However, everything comes together in the second act. Radcliffe proves himself worthy of the role and capable of some stunning acting, particularly in the much talked-about pivotal scene. Everybody in the audience knew that the young actor was eventually going to get naked in a scene where Strang is seduced by his precocious horsey-set friend Jill (Joanna Christie) and we discover the reason behind his acts of animal cruelty. As the moment approached, I half expected it to be ruined by gasps, giggles or the glare of camera-phones lighting up. But because the tension clicked so masterfully into place in the second act, the spell was not broken. (A phalanx of security guards watching for LED screens no doubt helped.)

As Strang's illusions about the adult world are shattered, Radcliffe delivers a heartbreakingly vulnerable performance, backed up by strong work from Griffiths and Christie (who also gets naked, but nobody cares because she isn't famous). Through Radcliffe's performance, you truly understand why Strang commits his seemingly incomprehensible act.

In the end, the thrilling second act of Equus makes up for the shortcomings of the first. And despite all the hype about too-young fans attending, the audience I was with was age appropriate.

Radcliffe wanted to show that he can play something other than Harry Potter and he has done it here. He has also exhibited a kind of artistic bravery that bodes well for his post-Potter future.

From The Daily Mail
There was no great moment of voyeuristic titillation. What was striking, instead, was the emergence of young Dan Radcliffe in the artistic raw, tested as an actor and found equal to a stretching role. The fashionable, 30-something women hanging over the edge of the Gielgud Theatre's boxes may have been salivating beforehand like Hogarthian trollops. Afterwards they were surely left poleaxed by a great drama done well. He has put Harry Potter tidily behind him - should he so desire. You could say, if you still had any inclination to equine images, that he has leaped from a tiring mount on to a fresh, frisky charger with a circus rider's aplomb.

Roger Berlind, a veteran New York theatre producer, said that if the production with Radcliffe and his fellow leading man, Richard Griffiths, wanted to move to Broadway, he would help raise the finance to present it. He said that he thought Radcliffe was a "natural stage performer". The play, which is clearly for grown-ups, has already sold £1.7million in tickets and the box office is taking a healthy amount every day.

From The Daily Mail
Pugh commented: "It's the first preview, we've got until the first night to continue working and we know what we have to do, but the boy's a revelation." For once a producer wasn't uttering the usual West End producer hyperbole. Radcliffe can certainly act and it was clear from last night's audience reception that he won't always be remembered for playing a boy wizard.

From The Guardian
Forget all the prurient press speculation about Harry Potter's private parts. The revelation of this revival is that Daniel Radcliffe really can act, proving that his screen appearances as JK Rowling's boy-hero are no flash in the magic pan. His performance also helps to camouflage the fact Peter Shaffer's celebrated ritual drama sometimes betrays its early 1970s origins.

From BBC
A star-studded audience saw Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe make his full West End debut in Equus. Christian Slater, Bob Geldof and Richard E Grant were just a few of the luminaries who braved the paparazzi outside London's Gielgud Theatre. Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry and Helena Bonham Carter - performers with close ties to the Harry Potter phenomenon - were also in attendance.

Boasting a well-toned physique and a compelling stage presence, Radcliffe quickly distances himself from his boy wizard alter-ego. Indeed, the overriding impression is of a gifted young actor casting off the shackles of a restrictive screen persona. True, he is perhaps too composed to be wholly credible as Alan Strang, the disturbed stable boy sectioned for blinding six horses. Nor do his polished vowels befit a character who, according to Shaffer's text, is both ill-educated and semi-literate.

With a maturity and intensity that belie his 17 years, though, the teenage heart-throb compellingly conveys the angst and trauma of a youth in crisis. And as Shaffer pieces together the sorry history that led him to commit such an inexplicable act of violence, Radcliffe ensures he retains both our sympathy and our compassion. Looking visibly drained and shaken as he took his bows, Tuesday's opening night clearly took its toll on an actor with minimal theatrical experience. Then again, he had just been required to strip naked for a sex scene with co-star Joanna Christie that leaves little to the imagination.

This is no mean feat in a drama that presents a lurid cocktail of sexual repression, religious obsession and stylised animal cruelty. But the real triumph is Radcliffe's for winning his thespian spurs in one of the most demanding roles an actor his age could tackle. Compared to the emotional exposure the part entails, his well-publicised disrobing seems almost incidental. Harry Potter fans, though, have one more shock in store should they choose to see their hero in his current guise. More shocking than wounding horses and having sex? Perhaps. Shortly after the interval, Daniel smokes a cigarette.

Potter star Radcliffe wins rave reviews in "Equus"
posted by Jas, 02/28/07
Dan has won rave reviews for his performance in Equus.

Daniel Radcliffe shook off the mantle of Harry Potter on Wednesday to win rave reviews for his stage portrayal of a tortured teenager in the grueling psychological thriller "Equus". "No flash in the magic pan," said The Guardian after the London premier of the play which saw the 17-year-old star of the boy wizard movies come of age on the stage. Radcliffe won praise for his performance but critics argued that Peter Shaffer's play, first performed in 1973, had not stood the test of time.

Fellow actors like Christian Slater and Richard E.Grant hailed Potter on the first night for taking on such a testing role and the critics agreed. With much media hype over Radcliffe's iconic nude scene in the play, advance sales had already topped two million pounds, making the play virtually critic-proof. And London's staid Gielgud Theater was besieged every night at previews by adoring teenage fans of Radcliffe. "Brilliant Radcliffe throws off Harry Potter's cloak," The Daily Telegraph said. "He is a thrilling stage actor of unexpected range and depth."

The Independent was equally warm, saying of Radcliffe "He cuts a compelling figure" in the role of a troubled teen who blinds six horses at the stable where he works. "But he is not that well served by the production." "What was striking was the emergence of young Dan Radcliffe in the artistic raw, tested as an actor and found equal to the stretching role," The Daily Mail said.

Richard Griffiths, who performed the role of Potter's vile Uncle Vernon in the Potter films, plays the psychiatrist trying to cure the deeply disturbed boy. Griffiths, warm in praise of Radcliffe afterwards, said: "He has an old head on young shoulders. He has to be regarded in a new way because he is a proper actor."

Radcliffe, eager to make the tricky transition from child star to adult actor, was fully aware of the risk he was taking. His hands still shaking after his emotion-charged first night performance, he told Reuters: "It would have been very easy to just do a very similar performance for your entire career. "Half the excitement of stepping up to do a new role was thinking God I might not be able to do this but I am going to give it a go," he said.

American theater critic Matt Wolf praised Radcliffe, saying: "I do admire him for taking it on. This is jumping in at the deep end. He makes you forget about Harry Potter but you can't help wishing he was in a stronger vehicle. It has not stood the test of time."

New OOTP still
posted by Jas, 02/27/07
Dan Latino has a new image of Harry from OOTP

Extras DVD
posted by Jas, 02/27/07
The 2-disc Extras Season 2 DVD will be released in the UK on March 25, it contains exclusive extra clips, including behind the scenes footage, a video diary and lots more unseen exclusives. More info in the press release from Lisa. Watch trailers for the DVD below

Equus reviews
posted by Jas, 02/27/07
Equus opens at the Gielgud Theatre today and here are reviews from various sources, watch video report here. See photos from Getty Images and Wenn

From The Indpendent
In the event, Radcliffe acquits himself well. He is not the most expressive of actors, and his stage presence will take time to evolve; but from the moment he enters the psychiatrist's office, shoulders hunched, eyes narrowed and singing advertising jingles to avoid questioning, he cuts a compelling figure. As the evening goes on, there are moments when he touches, even if not tugs at, the heart strings. One feels for this boy because one senses from his performance a repression hiding a reservoir of feelings desperate to burst.

If the production is well served by Radcliffe, he is not that well served by the production. The director, Thea Sharrock, fails too often to capture the tension in this psychological thriller; too many of the minor parts are curiously undercast (though Joanna Christie as the girlfriend is convincingly coquettish); the minimal set of four blocks on an empty stage adds little to the overall effect; and it is irritating to see the actors rearranging the blocks at moments of intensity. Having two rows of the audience seated above the back of the stage is simply distracting.

But no caveats can fully detract from the punch that this powerful and haunting play still packs, never more than when the horses are on stage - performers (led by actor and dancer Will Kemp) with their heads in cages of wire and metal, moving with serene majesty as dry ice rises from the stage. Dreamlike and disturbing moments.

From Reuters
Radcliffe confessed afterwards to first night nerves but said he had no qualms about baring all after two weeks of doing the play in previews. "After the first couple of previews, I didn't really care anymore," he told Reuters Television. Asked about all the publicity over his nude scenes, he said "It all seemed to imply the nudity was gratuitous which it isn't at all."

He won a standing ovation on opening night at London's Gielgud Theatre and fellow actors who came to watch were full of praise for his courage in taking on such a gruelling role. "I am so impressed with his choice of play and the career Daniel Radcliffe is having," Hollywood star Christian Slater told Reuters. You could hear a pin drop in the auditorium when 17-year-old Radcliffe performed his naked scene with actress Joanna Christie, who plays his girlfriend. "It is an incredible part for a young actor. He is taking a big risk," actor Richard E. Grant said.

But did fans of the clean-cut boy wizard object to their hero smoking, swearing and appearing naked on stage? Radcliffe said: "We have had some pretty hardcore fans at the stage door and they have all been very supportive and lovely about it."

The role of the psychiatrist who treats the tortured boy is performed by Richard Griffiths, the portly actor who plays Potter's vile Uncle Vernon in the Potter films. Griffiths said of Radcliffe's performance "You keep forgetting he is only 17. He handles himself with such aplomb." However one famous face was missing on opening night -- JK Rowling, author of the Potter books that became a global publishing phenomenon before being turned into box office hits. But Radcliffe said "She is coming to see it at some point. I don't think she objected in any way. She was very happy to see me going off and doing something else.

From Broadway World
Peter Shaffer's 1973 play, "Equus", a thoroughly absorbing and gripping psychological drama, rears its head once more in the West End in Thea Sharrock's revival at the Gielgud theatre. And the play has lost none of its power and ability to challenge the mind and shock the senses.

In this new production, the director gives us a polished, delicately poised production that succeeds in entertaining, unsettling and thrilling the emotions of the audience. The nudity of the cathartic denouement scene between Alan Strang and stable girl, Jill Mason, never seems gratuitous and every piece of the dramatic jigsaw is revealed with perfectly paced precision. John Napier's set consists of a minimalist group of movable blocks, with a row of stable doors covering the rear of the stage, inhabited at appropriate moments by glistening steel frames of horses' heads. Combined with David Hersey's atmospheric lighting, the effect is quite stunning. And the vision of an emotionally charged Alan Strang sitting high on the shoulders of a human horse with a bright steel head, becoming as one with the animal he worships, is one of the most powerful Act One closings an audience is ever likely to see.

As Alan Strang, Daniel Radcliffe is a total revelation. Casting off his Harry Potter magician's hat, he gives a performance of amazing maturity. At the right times boyishly cute and winsome, he is also convincingly troubled, withdrawn and disturbed, bursting into fury in a way that is for one special moment quite heart-breaking. Peter Shaffer's text is powerful and thought provoking as well as deftly touching, rich in imagery and sub-text, always seeming to find the perfectly apposite words to suit the character and challenge the listener. As for an apposite word to describe Thea Sharrock's revisiting of Shaffer's play - "Unmissable!"

From San Francisco Chronicle
"I sort of expected it really," Radcliffe said Tuesday about the controversy over the play's nude scene. "If I went into it thinking nobody was going to talk about it, I would have been very stupid." The publicity has helped the production sell $3.1 million worth of advance tickets and drew a host of stars — including Bob Geldof, Helena Bonham Carter and Christian Slater — to Tuesday's opening-night performance at the Gielgud Theatre.

For the most part, Radcliffe's performance is assured. His vocal range may be a bit narrow — he has a tendency to convey Strang's anguish by shouting — but his hooded eyes and hunched, defensive posture convey a wounded and bewildered young man. And when he finally lets loose in the climactic 10 minutes of nudity, he is emotionally unrestrained and compelling.

Radcliffe aside, Shaffer's play is given a strong, sensuous staging by young director Thea Sharrock. The play itself can feel a tad self-important, as Shaffer paints a swirl of the pagan, the primitive and the psyche around Strang's quasi-spiritual, erotic obsession with horses. "Equus" opened in 1973 at London's National Theatre, before a successful run on Broadway starring Anthony Hopkins. Richard Burton and Peter Firth starred in a 1977 film version.

Sharrock's production is spare and elegant, with John Napier's minimalist set evoking an ancient amphitheater, setting for ritual, drama or sacrifice. The horses that are central to the story are subtly and brilliantly depicted by actors using masks and movement. This production will pack in the crowds thanks to Radcliffe's fame and the unstoppable Harry Potter brand. It deserves to succeed on its own merits. Radcliffe proves he can shed, at least temporarily, the boy wizard's robes. "Equus" is on view until June 9.

From The Telegraph
Better yet, Daniel Radcliffe brilliantly succeeds in throwing off the mantle of Harry Potter, announcing himself as a thrilling stage actor of unexpected range and depth. Those of us who have watched the Potter films with our families have always liked Radcliffe, who has a rare natural charm about him, and he has improved greatly as an actor as the series has progressed.

Despite minimal previous theatrical experience Radcliffe here displays a dramatic power and an electrifying stage presence that marks a tremendous leap forward. I never thought I would find the diminutive (but perfectly formed) Radcliffe a sinister figure, but as Alan Strang, the play's teenage anti-hero who undergoes psychotherapy after viciously blinding six horses, there are moments when he seems genuinely scary in his rage and confusion. There are fleeting instants when you even detect a hint of Voldemort-like evil in his hooded eyes.

It helps of course that at 17, Radcliffe is exactly the same age as the character he is playing, and he superbly lays bare the sheer rawness of youth, the sudden mood swings of adolescence, and that intense unforgettable feeling that you are in a hostile world all on your own. I have a hunch that this play is going to attract a very large audience of devoted teenage girls.

The actor keeps turning the emotion on a sixpence, switching from sullen anger to raw vulnerability, or from terrible pain to a sudden childlike innocence and charm. And in the nude sex scene that has had all the media in such a tizzy, he and his partner Joanna Christie beautifully capture the awkward tenderness of young love before the action moves into altogether darker territory.

Window exit as fans besiege theatre
posted by Jas, 02/27/07
Poor Dan had to exit through the window to escape from a mob of fans outside the theatre

Veteran stars Jenny Agutter and Richard Griffiths were forced to climb out of a window to escape a theatre besieged by fans of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe. A mob of 450 mostly teenage fans had crowded outside the stage door of the Gielgud Theatre, where 17-year-old Radcliffe is appearing naked every night in Equus. Off to see the wizard: Fans crowd around Daniel Radcliffe as he signs autographs outside the Gielgud Theatre, where he is appearing naked every night in Peter Shaffer's Equus

Police were called to disperse the throng outside the theatre in Rupert Street while Radcliffe's co-stars Griffiths and Agutter were left trapped inside. Security staff managed to escort Radcliffe to his car, but the two veteran actors ended up having to climb out of a window to avoid the mêlée. For Griffiths this was a particularly difficult manoeuvre, as producer David Pugh pointed out. "Richard and Jenny had to get out through the side window by the box office on Rupert Street. You try to get Richard Griffiths out of a back window. It was a bit touch and go," he said.

The previews, including the one attended by police on Saturday night, have already seen a frenzy the likes of which are rare in West End theatres. But Radcliffe-mania is expected to peak tonight for the press night of Peter Shaffer's play, enjoying its first major revival since its premiere more than 20 years ago. The young star's appearance in Equus has prompted huge interest.

Mr Pugh estimated half the audience for the previews was made up of people who would not normally attend West End theatres but were coming to see Radcliffe. A large number of cameras have been confiscated before previews. Equus premiered at the National Theatre in 1973 but Shaffer, now 80, had until now refused to sanction a major revival because he did not believe there was a young actor capable of playing Strang.

Mr Pugh said: "It was only after Peter Shaffer approved Daniel's casting that we thought, 'Ooh, what about the Harry Potter fans?' But touch wood, there has not been a single giggle or whoop or cheer." During the nude scenes, the audience had remained silent. "You could hear a pin drop," he added.

Similar report from Blackpool Gazette

Stage veteran Agutter said she was stunned by the reaction. "There are some extraordinary people outside the theatre. They're not normally the people who have been watching the play either - they just turn up," she said. "I think there might be some better escapes than a window, though." Agutter, 54, was full of praise for Radcliffe. "It's a wonderful play and Daniel is absolutely splendid, as is Richard Griffiths. I think we forget Daniel is only 17 years old," she said. Radcliffe's decision to strip off on stage represents a radical departure from his screen role as JK Rowling's boy wizard. Agutter admitted: "Anyone who's there to see Harry Potter will be very shocked."

A demanding kind of horse play
posted by Jas, 02/26/07
An interview with Dan and the cast of Equus where they talked about nudity, psychiatry and growing up on stage

Maiming a horse is a far cry from riding a hippogriff, isn't it?
Completely. There came a point on the third Potter film when I thought, acting is what I want to do. I thought it would be a bad idea to wait till the Potter films were all finished to do something else. There are certain people who will be more than happy to see you in any other role you like, and there will be some who will never, ever see you as anything other than Harry Potter. Once you've accepted that, it's fine - you just do whatever you like. With this, they can say I'm good or terrible but the one thing they can't say is I haven't challenged myself.

The play argues that if you scratch the surface of any domestic environment, you will find abnormality and dysfunction. Is that your experience?
I know a few people that are very much like Alan, in that they are quick to anger. I recognise bits of myself in Alan, absolutely, and I think when young people come to see the play they will see themselves in him. I've got a great image of somebody who came to see the play when they were 16 and saw themselves as Alan, and then coming to see it again and seeing themselves as Dysart. Alan's trouble is more visible because he hasn't got the vocabulary or social skills to disguise it.

The play is an extreme portrayal of teenage isolation. How do young actors avoid the psychological fall-out of early stardom?
It's me and the boy who was in The 400 Blows and Truffaut's other Antoine Doinel films. I've been lucky enough to have a direct route laid out for me.

Towards the end of the play, Alan and a stable girl have a love scene that goes badly wrong. The scene is, in all senses of the word, revealing, in that it involves nudity. How do you approach it?
I didn't look at the nudity and go, oh great. But it's the same as doing a role with an accent or a particular affectation. You look at the character first. Lots of the actors that I've admired have at one stage or another taken their kit off. It's a rite of passage. That iconic scene is the physical and emotional climax of the play. So if I do that with pants on, it would be crap. Full interview

Half Blood Prince to be shot in Ireland
posted by Jas, 02/25/07
Warner Bros is hoping to shoot a large number of scenes of the next Harry Potter movie in Ireland.

The US company is scouting Ireland for possible locations to film Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, the sixth instalment of the movie franchise. Filming is due to begin early next year. Warner Bros, the movie subsidiary of AOL Time Warner, shot the previous five Harry Potter films in Britain, including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is due to be released in the coming months. However, executives at the production company believe they have now exhausted possible locations in Britain.

An interview with Richard Griffith
posted by Jas, 02/23/07
Richard Griffiths talks a little bit about Dan in Equus in an interview with The Telegraph.

'I think it was difficult for Daniel at first, especially as this is his stage debut, but they have done it brilliantly. Initially there were just four of us in the room, then eight, then 40 - and they [Radcliffe and Joanna Christie, the two young actors who appear naked] became confident about it. Obviously what you worry about when you take your clothes off is the prurient response.' And the temperature. 'That's true. I hadn't thought about that. Knowing David Pugh [the producer] he will probably drop the temperature by three degrees to make everyone's nipples perkier. I don't think it is too bad for these two actors because they have lovely bodies, so they are admirable rather than mockable.'

Dan's smoking scene in Equus
posted by Jas, 02/23/07
David Pugh explains Dan's smoking scene in Equus

He appears to blind a horse on stage, he is naked and he has to simulate losing his virginity. But what really ruffled feathers yesterday was that Daniel Radcliffe, the 17-year-old star of the Harry Potter films, will smoke on stage in his West End debut.

The image brought immediate condemnation. Amanda Sandford, a spokesman for Ash, the anti-smoking organisation, said: "It is regrettable that he is smoking, whatever the circumstances. He is a role model for young people and if he decided to take up smoking in real life that would be of great concern. "Even though it is an act, nicotine is highly addictive and he could find himself hooked."

David Pugh, the producer of the revival, said: "If they are worried about smoking and not about the fact that he's simulating sex with a young girl on stage, it makes me think that they've got their priorities wrong. "Daniel smokes in the play. He doesn't smoke in life. It's in the script and it always has been. It is not gratuitous. In fact, it's a very beautiful scene where Alan Strang (played by Radcliffe) is with his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist offers him a cigarette and it's really the first time the man and boy bond as they talk and smoke."

The Harry Potter effect has been staggering. Each night at previews, some 300 fans of Radcliffe have besieged the stage door. And the play opens with a £2 million advance, meaning that seven of the initial run of 16 weeks, are sold out.

Equus photos
posted by Jas, 02/22/07
Some images from Equus from Wireimage, Getty Images (click on next arrow for the rest), LFI, Abaca Press, and Wenn

Equus package
posted by Jas, 02/21/07
Plan to see Equus? buy this package offered by The Red Carnation Hotels which includes tickets to the play, champagne and full english breakfast every day on your stay at The Montague on the Gardens.

London Equus with Radcliffe & Griffiths Coming to Broadway?
posted by Jas, 02/21/07
Producers of the new production of Equus are looking to bring the play to Broadway in the Fall of 2007.

Michael Riedel, in today's New York Post, reports that producers of the new London production of EQUUS are looking to bring the play to Broadway in the Fall of 2007. The show's been receiving never-before-seen levels of "buzz" namely do to the young Harry Potter star's disrobing on stage. The show, which Riedel also reports has the highest ever advance for a play in West End history is due to end its limited run in June when filming begins for the sixth Harry Potter film. A potential Broadway production would likely happen after that filming is complete.

Daniel Radcliffe is making his West End stage debut starring opposite Richard Griffiths in the first major revival of Peter Shaffer's classic play "EQUUS" opening at the Gielgud Theatre on Tuesday 27 February 2007. Performance times at the Gielgud Theatre will be Mondays-Saturdays at 7.30pm, with Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Tickets can be purchased from the Gielgud Theatre Box Office on 0870 950 0915 or online at www.equustheplay.com.

Radcliffe's co-star defends nude scene
posted by Jas, 02/21/07
Dan's co-star in Equus, Joanna Christie, has defended the nude scenes in the play.

24-year-old Christie is amazed by the amount of press attention Radcliffe has attracted, and urges critics to look beyond the raunchy scenes to see the meaning of the play itself. She says, "I can't believe there are people saying he's a bad role model for children. He's an actor playing a part, and in the story he happens to have a relationship with a girl. "The play is on school syllabuses. It's an amazingly interesting, complex story. It's not about nudity or sex. It's about a lot of very complex issues. When we do (the nude scene) in the context of the play it's really beautiful and natural. "I expected some publicity because of Daniel but not stories and photos everywhere."

Equus review
posted by Jas, 02/20/07
Equus review from Ain't It Cool

If you have something to prove as an actor though, the London stage is the place to do it. Theres no fancy editing, no camera tricks and no voice effects to save you there. So did he stand up to the test? I'm amazed to say, yes. It was such an obvious ploy by Daniel Radcliffes management to try and get him taken seriously by putting him in a 'serious play' in a setting where 'serious actors' go to do their thing and show the world how 'serious' they are, that I would have loved to come away saying 'the boys crap and this just goes further to prove it'. The fact is though, he really is quite good in it.

It's obvious that he doesn't have a well trained theatrical voice, it croaks sometimes when it should boom, but in terms of overall stage presence he really seemed to have it. One of the key traits of the character is a menacing, judgemental stare which Radcliffe captures perfectly. He really evokes a sense of turmoil and distress that the kid is experiencing over his feeling's for the horses and the sense that no one will understand his worship and the reasons for why he has performed such an act. When all is said and done though, this production will be remembered for one thing, and luckilly it will be that the boy who couldn't act took on the biggest challenge he could find, and suceeded beyond all expectations.

The biggest compliment I can give is the he truly goes from being 'Harry Potter on stage' to being Alan Strang, a disturbed young man with issues regarding horses. The guy spends a significant amount of time in the second act as naked as the day he was born but by this point the entire supporting cast from all 4 Harry Potter films could come on and perform an elaborate burlesque routine and you wouldn't care because Daniel Radcliffe has taken it beyond this.

I'm under no illusion that a lot of people will be going to see the play because they are interested in the story. The play could consist of him walking on stage, taking a crap and walking off again and it would still sell out. What makes the difference is that people will walk out of this hopefully thinking more about the play, what happened in it and how it was done, rather then thinking about what one of the lead actors has been in before. It will also force the wider movie press to think of something more interesting then 'its darker then the previous films and the actors have risen to it' to say in their future reviews of the upcoming Potter films.

J.K Rowling wouldn't even know where to buy ink black enough to write something darker then this. The death's of Sirius Black and Dumbledore will seem as distressing as the site of a care bear hugging a teletubby in comparison to what Alan Strang gets up to though it is good to see that Radcliffe does have the acting chops to give these moments the gravitas they deserve when they do make it to the screen.

When all is said and done though, this production will be remembered for one thing, and luckilly it will be that the boy who couldn't act took on the biggest challenge he could find, and suceeded beyond all expectations.

Photos: Dan after Equus performance
posted by Jas, 02/18/07
Some photos of Dan signing autographs after his appearance in Equus at the at the Gielgud Theatre last night.

Warner Bros. statement on Dan
posted by Jas, 02/18/07
Warner Bros. Pictures has issued a statement regarding Dan's nude scenes in Equus

In response to pieces that have run in various UK media - A spokesperson from Warner Bros. Pictures has issued the following: "Daniel Radcliffe is an extremely talented actor, as well as a great collaborator and friend to Warner Bros. Pictures. We've had great experiences working with him on our films and fully support him in the artistic choices he makes as an actor."

Equus review
posted by Jas, 02/18/07
Equus review from NY Daily News

And right from the start of the play, a fully clothed Radcliffe drops a cluster of F-bombs just to shatter any lingering illusions that he's still a nice boy. Far from it - he cusses up a storm, rages at psychiatrist Martin Dysart (brilliantly played by Richard Griffiths, last seen in "The History Boys" on Broadway) and gets upclose and personal with a horse. He is hormonal Harry, a wizard gone wrong.

And then, for the final 10 minutes of the play, as the 17-year-old sheds his clothes and his inhibitions, we get to see just how little Harry has grown up. Fit-bodied and fearless, he doesn't skulk in the shadows like his wizard nemesis, Lord Voldemort, but leaps about as the action reaches its climax. The actor never once looks as if he wished he'd packed his cloak of invisibility. He was nonchalant about his nakedness. At the end, the crowd gave him and Griffiths a standing ovation.

Equus preview
posted by Jas, 02/17/07
Reviews of Equus from various sources. The play opens on 27 February at Gielgud Theatre in London's West End.

Daniel Radcliffe conjured up a remarkable magic trick last night — by stripping off he made Harry Potter disappear. His West End performance as a psychiatric patient in Equus was so engrossing you could forget he is the boy wizard. Daniel plays Alan Strang, a 17-year-old who blinds six horses, in this 1970s play by Peter Shaffer. It examines a psychiatrist's attempts to cure him. After revealing Strang's inner demons, Radcliffe strips totally bare for a roll in the wa-hay with blonde actress Joanna Christie.

As well as showing London theatre-goers a back-side they hadn't seen, Radcliffe skilfully displayed anger, wit and energy. He smoked and even uttered the F-word. The best lines — and the laughs — came from his Potter co-star Richard Griffiths, as psychiatrist Martin Dysart. But this play could be remembered for launching Radcliffe as one of Britain's great actors. -- The Sun

------------------------------

It wasn't a question of horsing around when Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe took to the London stage in all his glory. The 17-year-old truly impressed with a bravura full-frontal display that earned him a standing ovation.

All 980 seats at the theatre were taken for the preview performance, and many in the audience had their fantasies fulfilled when three-quarters of the way through the second act, Radcliffe bared all for a sex scene with his young leading lady, Joanna Christie. All of a sudden there was no coughing, no muttering, just people holding their breath at the sight of a pale teenager engaging in a full embrace with a beautiful young girl.

For Radcliffe, it was a big mental leap from portraying JK Rowling's boy wizard to taking on a character in the psychoreligious exploration of equine worship. Radcliffe could have stood on the stage and read the London telephone book and the play still would have sold out. That he took on such an intellectual theatrical challenge was brave - and he succeeded. To be sure, there is much work to be done and the next ten preview performances before opening night on February 27 will further refine the drama.

The show at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue overran by some 25 minutes, but producer David Pugh promised that the production would become much tighter as everyone gained confidence. However, Radcliffe was in full control of his acting abilities. He had been preparing for his debut for 14 months and was word perfect and knew every entrance and exit by heart. The audience had come from far and wide.

The play, which is clearly for grown-ups, has already sold £1.7million in tickets and the box office is taking a healthy amount every day. Radcliffe's first entrance on stage startled some who hadn't studied the play. He bounded into view, clad only in jeans, to begin his sessions with the psychiatrist, played by Griffiths. The first words out of Radcliffe's mouth were in fact sung. His character Alan Strang sang several bars of the Milky Bar advertising ditty: "The Milky Bar kid is strong and tough..." and then launched into the song from the Martini commercial.

Essentially, the play is a psychological mystery as Griffiths investigates the reasons why Radcliffe's stable boy maims the horses. Pugh commented: "It's the first preview, we've got until the first night to continue working and we know what we have to do, but the boy's a revelation." For once a producer wasn't uttering the usual West End producer hyperbole. Radcliffe can certainly act and it was clear from last night's audience reception that he won't always be remembered for playing a boy wizard. -- The Daily Mail

There's also reports that Warner Bros. is not too happy about Dan's nude scenes in the play.

Harry Potter studio chiefs are reportedly concerned the scenes could damage their multi-million-dollar film franchise and could even lead to Radcliffe being replaced as the young wizard. One was quoted as saying: "Warner Bros have been building up their publicity machine for Harry's first - chaste - screen kiss when the next Potter film (Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix) comes out in the summer. "Now our star is out there doing full-frontal sex. We've been blown completely out of the water by this."

'Equus' director reveals naked ambition
posted by Jas, 02/15/07
An interview with Equus director, Thea Sharrock where she talked about Dan and the play.

Is it right to unleash Radcliffe's burgeoning sexuality on this unsuspecting audience? "That's not what the nudity is about," says Sharrock. "There is unquestionably a very dark side to the play - that's what makes it so visceral and exciting - but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's an exceptional piece of playwriting and it's time to see it again. It's too good for yet another generation not to see it. At some point, you have to hold your hands up and say you can't please all of the people all of the time. But perhaps some of those people will come and see it and be bowled over by Daniel's performance - not Harry Potter, but Daniel Radcliffe - and forgive us for doing it. He's not a fictional boy who lives in a book."

Equus is the biggest gamble of her career. "With Dan, I do feel a huge sense of responsibility. It's a huge personal risk for him. One has an overwhelming sense of wanting to protect him, wanting to work him as hard as possible, so that when he goes out there he's going to do himself proud." If anyone can make this production remembered for more than Harry Potter stripping off, Sharrock can.

New Harry and Luna pic
posted by Jas, 02/14/07
Mira found a new picture of Harry and Luna from OOTP. There's another one at DanLatino.com

Now, watch very carefully
posted by Jas, 02/11/07
We saw some new OOTP images from MSNBC the other day, February 19 issue of Newsweek magazine will have more of their interview with OOTP set designer Craig Stuart, talking about the OOTP set as well as set for Half Bloom Prince

Craig is now designing sets for the sixth film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," including the astronomy tower where a beloved character will plummet to his death. "It has to be impressive and beautiful and poignant," Craig says. "So I'm looking forward to doing that." He's also anxious to get his hands on J. K. Rowling's seventh, and final, book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," due in stores July 21, one week after "Phoenix" hits screens. "I can't wait," he says. "We need to know which sets to retain for the last film." Not that he'll get an early peek. "I never have before," he says, and laughs. "I just have to go to the bookshop" - like every other fan. Full interview

Dirty Harry / Dan The Man
posted by Jas, 02/11/07
There are two new interviews with Dan from The Guardian and Times Online. Dan talks about music, fame, his decision to do Equus and shooting Harry Potter of course.

From speccy wizard to deranged stable boy, Daniel Radcliffe's trajectory from child actor to rising star of the stage couldn't be more different - or daring. But underneath the mature exterior of the nascent leading man is an ordinary teenager about to savour his first legal pint - not to mention his first nude scene.

First things first. As he removes his battered green peaked cap and wriggles from his chunky jumper, blusteringly polite and keen, Daniel Radcliffe wants me to know that no, he is not trying to grow 'a bad teenage moustache'. He has been instructed not to shave before he next shows up for work. 'This is two days' worth,' he says with a hopeful smile, rubbing his barely stubbly face, 'so I'm getting there.'

We talk hair for a bit. He's 17 now, and it's something of an issue. As he sheds clothes, stripping to T-shirt, jeans, knackered trainers - I catch an eyeful of the substantial fur running from Radcliffe's navel down to his crotch.

'That's what's annoying!' he shouts. 'It goes from your head then sprouts out everywhere else.' His dad, Alan, has a decent head of hair, but he went grey very young. 'But he's quite a dignified grey, I like to think. I'm hoping that's where I'm going. But women get a rough deal in the hair department - they're not supposed to have any, and occasionally you have women who get to 60 and have a hairy top lip. That's terrible!' Radcliffe's eyes widen at the horror.

As we settle into our seats in a room in a boutique hotel in Chelsea, not far from the Fulham home that Radcliffe - an only child - shares with his parents, we move on to music. He's a serious fan, mostly of indie bands, and I've brought him copies of some albums not yet in the shops. He's especially chuffed to receive a copy of Bloc Party's second CD. He met singer Kele Okereke at the Reading Festival. Okereke didn't know who he was, until the actor's friend said, 'Uh, this is Daniel Radcliffe ...' Then he 'sort of twigged and it was one of those situations where it was a bit embarrassing for a moment'.

He flips excitedly through the pile. 'What's great is occasionally I'll mention a band in an interview - like, I mentioned Arcade Fire in an interview with Rolling Stone last year. Lo and behold, a month later a crate of Arcade Fire stuff turned up!' he beams.

Ah, the perks of the job when you're Britain's most famous teenager. Or, arguably, the most famous teen film star in the world. Not that he needs free stuff. The global success of the four Harry Potter films have made Daniel Radcliffe - let's call him Dan, everyone else does - the richest kid in Britain. Since beating off 400,000 hopefuls over four auditions when he was 11, Dan has seen his fee per movie rise handsomely. For the opening instalment, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), he was reportedly paid £60,000; for the last, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, £6m. With Dan also receiving a share of revenue from sales of movie-related merchandise, his net worth by the time of the release this summer of the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, should be around £20m.

But as Harry Potter knows only too well, fame and success attract dark forces, too. Dan understands that, now he's approaching adulthood, his celebrity means that the paparazzi - and citizen snappers armed with camera-phones - see him as fair game. Even if you're not the kind of star who goes partying without any pants on, you have to be careful.

'If [the paparazzi] got a picture of me at 15 doing vodka shots - which by the way I wasn't - then they'd be having a field day. I do have to watch myself going out and things.' At Reading, a mate asked Dan to hold his pint for a second; he had to decline. He's been in this game long enough to imagine the resulting headline: 'Harry Blotto'.

Going to gigs, he says, is relatively risk-free, even if you have been a Vanity Fair cover star. 'People are there for the music. So most of the time they don't recognise you. I went to see Radiohead at Hammersmith and there was not a single person who wasn't transfixed by the stage.' Clubs are out of the question, but he's not into the music they play.

He tells the story of a friend being offered £200 by a newspaper for a picture of one well-known, club-hopping teen celebrity doing cocaine; he was horrified, and knows it's likely there's a much higher bounty on incriminating photos of himself.

'I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a monarchist,' he continues, 'but I do feel sorry for poor Kate thingy. What's her name? Middleton. Those pictures of her walking out of her house the other day ...' He shakes his head at the image of Prince William's girlfriend spending her birthday morning running the paparazzi gauntlet. 'The thing I kept thinking is, they're all saying he's gonna marry her - what if he's not? That must create some really awkward moments over dinner.'

Until fairly recently, attention from female admirers was little more than an amusing curiosity to Dan. An estimated 6,000 fans crowded outside New York's Radio City Music Hall for the 2004 unveiling of The Prisoner of Azkaban. But in 2005, at the American premiere of The Goblet of Fire, Pottermania boiled over: 'Rupert [Grint, aka Ron Weasley] had underwear thrown at him!' he laughs. One girl in a car trailed Dan's limousine through the streets of Manhattan; when they stopped at traffic lights she tried to climb in the passenger window. 'It was very, very strange.' Another girl held up a banner: 'Mrs Radcliffe is here.' His mum was confused by that, 'because she's Mrs Radcliffe'. She didn't immediately understand that her little boy was now an object of lust.

That said, even when he was promoting the first Potter film in America, Dan remembers the girl who waited for him, dressed only in a towel. 'I was about 11 when that happened. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was just discovering what everything was!' he splutters. 'That was really cool actually. I wish that would happen again. As I remember, she was very attractive. I'd be up for something now!'

Dan's publicist-cum-confidante Vanessa Davies - who's been his media chaperone for six years - pipes up from the adjacent room. 'You don't want to be saying that in an interview ...' Chastened, Dan quickly dampens down his hormones. I glimpse for a moment the push-pull he must wrestle with daily: of being a kid in a super-grown-up world.

When I ask him if he has to worry about his relationships being over-exposed - or about any girlfriend's motives - he shoots Davies a glance before replying. Then he ploughs on regardless. 'I've not got a girlfriend at the moment. I have had probably two I suppose what you call serious girlfriends. But I've never worried about that, or them doing anything. Generally I'd rather take the chance if I really like someone. I think I'd generally be able to tell. I've got quite a good instinct for people.

'Obviously you have to watch a bit, and I'm sure there will be a lot of girls ... Well, I hope there will be a lot of girls who are just trying to get stories! Somebody said to me the other day, "Do you ever worry that girls are just giving you attention because of who you are?" I was like, "I'm 17, I don't care! It's wonderful!"'

What his Potter fans will make of his next role is hard to predict. This month he starts a four-month run at London's Gielgud Theatre in Peter Shaffer's Equus. It's the first major London production of Equus since the original, more than 30 years ago. Dan plays Alan Strang, a disturbed - and unshaven - stable lad who blinds six horses with a metal spike. Richard Griffiths (The History Boys and, of course, Uncle Dursley in the Potter movies) takes the role of Dr Martin Dysart, the psychiatrist charged with treating him. And, in a nod to Sidney Lumet's 1977 film adaptation of Equus, Jenny Agutter is Hesther Saloman, the magistrate who first refers the boy to Dysart. In the big-screen version Agutter was Jill Mason, the comely stable gal who seduces Alan. It is their abortive sexual fumbling in the hayloft that causes Strang's sexual-religious obsession with horses and their mystical spirit ('equus') to spill over into a savage attack on the animals in the stalls below.

Equus is a daring career move for a child actor hitherto known as a speccy boy-wizard. Last year, Dan first broke out of the Potter bubble with a guest turn in the second series of Extras. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant cast him as a brattish, sex-mad adolescent who accidentally pings his prize condom on to the head of Dame Diana Rigg. He loved every minute of it, 'playing up to the preconception that everyone has of you as a child actor - that you're gonna be really cocky and full of yourself'.

But why did he decide to do this arduous, psychologically challenging role? 'It is a really intense, sexual and in some ways violent play,' he concedes. 'And some of the audience may be shocked. People may even possibly think that I shouldn't be doing it because of the Potter fans. But I think that would be a mistake ... the person at the centre of all the attention should always be the one to lead where the attention goes,' he concludes firmly and with savvy flourish. And here I see the other side of Dan. This combination, of the gauche and the worldly-wise, is rather endearing. You'd like to have a beer with this chap, you think. When he's legal, of course.

I ask Dan what JK Rowling makes of his new adventure.

'She's coming to see it!' he says, beaming. 'She's very excited about it, which is great! I think it will be weird for her because - I'm not sure how true it is - someone said that when she first saw my screen test she said something about it being like she'd found the son she never had. So it's going to be very weird for her to see her long-lost son blind horses! I look forward to hearing what she thinks.'

It's a big year all-round for Radcliffe. In August he films his first major TV role - the lead in My Boy Jack, a drama about Rudyard Kipling's son, whose death in the First World War haunted the writer for the rest of his life. Like a proper boy, Dan is excited at the prospect of filming the trench scenes, which are being recreated in Ireland. 'It's also an excuse to watch loads of World War I movies and read Birdsong,' he adds.

September should see the release of another non-Potter project. December Boys, a low-budget film he made in Australia, is a Sixties-set drama in which Dan plays one of four orphans vying for the attention of potential adoptive parents. He and his parents have a house in Melbourne and often visit during the British winter - it was great to fit in a bit of work, especially on a film that was a short shoot, compared with the nine or 10 months required for each Potter film.

But the summer brings an even more pivotal development in his young life: on 23 July, Dan turns 18 and he will get access to his considerable fortune. He's no flash Harry but reckons he might buy a Toyota Prius (not that he's passed his test, and not that he's 'a real environmentalist - I always forget to turn the lights off'). Or he may indulge his passion for modern art; he loves Jim Hodges's work, although his favourite artist is Jackson Pollock. He's also considering buying his own place, and he's looking forward to going to the pub and holding a pint without fearing the flash of a camera-phone. One thing he won't be doing, though, is having a party. He'd be useless at organising it, he says, 'I'm not really a party person. I don't really know what to do with myself when I'm standing there.'

July also sees the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film, and publication of the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Dan lets slip that the latter is coming out on 07/07/07. Davies shouts through again. That date isn't confirmed, she says. Blushing, Dan says his big worry is that the book will be published just days before the 13 July US premiere of the movie. He won't have time to read it, and a journalist on the red carpet is bound to ask what he thinks of the ending ... Later, it turns out the publication date of the book is 21 July, so he really will be stumped.

Is there a sense of relief that this summer the series finally draws to a close?

'It was a relief until a short time ago, when I started thinking, "God, this will have been nine years of my life by the end. 'I've met so many people, and people have come in and come out of my life in that time, and I've made some amazing friendships. And some friendships that have started and then' - he laughs and coughs - 'reverted to not being friends any more.'

He reflects on the way that acting, and Harry Potter, have defined his 17 years. Having spent large chunks of his adolescence in the company of adults, famous ones at that, it means that he counts as friends not schoolmates and peers but people like Gary Oldman, Imelda Staunton and Kenneth Branagh. (It was Branagh - Gilderhoy Lockhart in the second film, Chamber of Secrets - who first suggested that Dan do Equus, and who worked with him on early workshop versions of the play in 2005.) He sometimes thinks he's taken on the characteristics of an 'old man' on account of all the adult company he keeps.

'And teen years,' he continues, 'are the years of your life where everything's happening - you fall in love for the first time, you do all the stuff. And alongside all that happening in my life has been Harry Potter. It's gonna be exciting in a way because I'll be free from all that. But that's been the stage [on which] my teen years have been played out. So it's gonna be really sad when they're finally over.'

For all the surreality of his A-list existence, Radcliffe's key debt to Harry Potter is more prosaic. Ask him if he could imagine a life without the films and he replies, 'I think it would have been a crap life, to be honest.' Not because he wouldn't have had the money, fame, fun - 'but in terms of being at school'. He went for his first audition, aged nine, for a role in a TV version of David Copperfield, at the suggestion of a film agent friend of his parents. 'The reason I did that was because I was not doing particularly well at school.'

Then, making the Potter movies was at first 'just fun. I was a kid on a film set and it was brilliant and I was swinging about on the scaffolding.' But by the third film, The Prisoner of Azkaban, 'I really started to get into the process of it as well. And that enjoyment has just increased as the films have gone on. '

The production cycle of the films also made his secondary-school-age experiences better. 'I was never good at sport, and as I wasn't very academic either, I'd have found all that really hard and frustrating. So being tutored one-to-one on set has been great.' He credits his English tutor - 'a great inspiration' - with opening his eyes to the wonders of poetry. Writing poems is one of his hobbies. 'A lot of it's about recording how I'm feeling, or about certain events in my life. Much more fun than writing a diary.' His favourite modern poet is Tony Harrison, whose partner happens to be Sian Thomas, who plays Amelia Bones in the upcoming Potter film. 'So I was fortunate enough to be able to write to him.'

Though The Order of the Phoenix is the longest of the six published Potter novels, the production was the shortest, because Dan could devote more time to filming after leaving City of London School last summer, midway through the shoot. He was gobsmacked by his results: As in all three of his AS level exams (religion and philosophy, history, English literature). But he won't be going to university; he's not even sure when - or if - he'll go back to take his A-levels. 'I'm much more into the idea of educating myself just by reading endlessly, which I'm perfectly happy to do,' he grins. His current reading matter: Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark. 'Much easier than Lolita, actually.'

Phoenix is the darkest, most intense, most complex Potter film so far. 'It was also the most fun I've had on any of them,' he says. Not because there are love/kissing scenes - 'although they were good!' - but because he's a big fan of director David Yates. And because he got to work intently with Oldman (Sirius Black) and Staunton (Dolores Umbridge).

Dan is remarkably mature and confident for someone not yet legally an adult. Even with his fine line in luvvie-speak he's the least bumptious, most charming teenage millionaire superstar you're ever likely to meet. 'Someone recently thought I was 19, despite my diminutive stature [he's 5ft 5in],' he says proudly. 'That was quite cool. I must just exude a halo of maturity at all times,' he declaims with a mock theatrical ponceyness.

David Heyman, producer of the Potter films, says that the seventh and final film will be done by 2010. But by 2010, Dan will be 20. Is he committed to the seventh Potter film? For once, his easy conversational flow falters. 'Um, nnnnot for cer ... sure. But if I did the sixth one, which I probably will, I think it'll be really weird not to do the last one. If you've come that far you might as well finish them.'

What does he think will happen in the final book? Will he die?

'I think I will. I sort of hope I will, really. I think that's really the only way Jo can end it, if Harry and Voldemort... Maybe one can only die if the other one dies. I don't know that for sure. But I'm quite looking forward to doing a death scene, if I get that opportunity.'

But honestly, he says, he has no idea of how the series will end. Nor does he want to. He's a Potter fan, like everyone else. 'Jo came down to the set at one point and I said, "Oh hello, why are you here today?" And she said, "Oh I just needed a break from the book - Dumbledore's giving me a lot of trouble." And I said, "But isn't he dead?" And she said, "Well, yeah, but it's more complex ..." I was like, [briskly] "OK, I'm not gonna ask anything else!"'

Our time is drawing to a close. We've met on a Sunday afternoon because it's the only time he has spare - director Thea Sharrock is putting her Equus cast through a strenuous preparation schedule. So far, he's only taken his top off in rehearsal, 'which was all right'. The actress playing Jill Mason is going to be naked too, 'so at least I won't be on my own. But, um, I think it's going to be very, very sensitively lit, which is nice. The nudity is just something I've gotta do really,' he says, so casually he's almost slurred. 'It's just part of the play.'

Has he been sneakily getting in shape?

'I try and keep relatively fit anyway, but I haven't been taking loads of steroids and stuff! That would be the worst thing I could do actually,' he guffaws. 'Doesn't it make your balls shrink?'

Did he have to think long and hard about doing ... Dan interrupts me with a snigger. 'Sorry! Long and hard!'

Sorry, slip of the tongue. Anyway. Is the decision to do Equus some sort of statement on his part?

'Yeah, definitely. I just want to establish that I can do other things. And that I'm not afraid to do very, very different things from Harry. Harry is an incredibly challenging part. But Alan is just so different.

'And with the nudity thing... The thing is, if I did the first production of Equus in 30 years and didn't get my kit off in probably the most iconic scene in the play, people would be going, "He's not really committed to this!" It's got to be done, it's a great moment in the play. It makes me look much more vulnerable if I've got, you know, pants off rather than pants on!'

And Dan Radcliffe snorts like a teenage boy. Albeit a super-rich, ultra-famous, highly talented, rather smart and decent one ...

Equus previews at the Gielgud Theatre from 16 February. -- Craig McLean, The Guardian

--------------------------------

Daniel Radcliffe can’t wait to get home tonight. Not because there is a contract to sign or a script to peruse, but because the Klaxons album should have arrived from Amazon. This is cause for excitement in a 17-year-old indie-punk-funk fan, no less for the Harry Potter star, with his wealth and adoring fans, and his collection of plastic comedy ears recently sent by a humorous Japanese contingent. He will listen to his new music in a bedroom stuffed with piles of old NMEs that his mother, Marcia, is constantly asking him to chuck out. This afternoon, he has been in rehearsals for his lead role in Equus, the most wholesome of our teenage icons having chosen the most controversial of plays as his vehicle of transformation. It has nudity, torrid sex, mental aberration, erotic obsession with a horse and nothing in common with the magical realm, save perhaps a passing fancy for centaurs. “A play to change how people think,” he says reverently.

The story of a disturbed stable boy who has blinded six horses with a hoof pick is an unresolved exploration of the parameters of normal human behaviour, but Radcliffe’s take on his complex character is refreshingly straightforward. “When I was 10 and I’d seen a Bond film, I’d go home and act out the characters,” he says in his well-modulated tones (no teenage mockney, thank goodness). “Alan is doing that; he fantasises about becoming a centaur.”

Young Dan has grown up. On a year out from the Potter schedule — the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is released in July, and he has signed up for the final two after that — he has chosen to diversify before he is eternally imprisoned in Hogwarts in the minds of an audience that is maturing with him. “Better sooner than later. To some people, I will only ever be Harry. I know that, I don’t fight it. I don’t want to distance myself from him. I’m proud of that work. But I do want to show them that I am not Harry Potter. I am an actor.”

Equus is Radcliffe’s first stage work, apart from a guest appearance in The Play What I Wrote (and before that as a monkey in leggings at infant school). He seems unfazed by the popular press’s scrutiny of his toned physique and sprouting body hair, and simply asked his Potter co-star and friend (and, truth be told, idol) Gary Oldman for advice on being naked on stage. “He said the first night is terrifying, the second is pretty scary, and after that you don’t care. When you do it in a cold room and you are nervous, everything goes a bit shy down there, but I have been assured it will be nice and warm on the night. We have done the nudity scene twice with our clothes off, and my acting improved so much. It’s hard to show that vulnerability you need for nakedness with your clothes on. Now I get them off at the drop of a hat.”

This may be Radcliffe’s moment to grow up, but as he springs into a room at a hotel near his Fulham home, his piercing blue eyes burning a path before him, he seems vibrantly, impossibly young, a boy teetering on the edge of grown-up life, all bum fluff and occasional zits and no-girlfriend crises. Casual in his rehearsal jeans and jumper, he asks for a Coke and jumps up to silence the offensive background music; the only clue to his status is a gentle giant of a minder called Jason, his driver for the duration of the Equus production, just in case he gets “a few lunatic fans on the street”.

Seven years ago, he was offered the chance to sign up for seven Potter pictures, all to be shot in Los Angeles, and his horrified parents turned the offer down flat, while 10-year-old Dan knew nothing about it. It was only after a chance meeting with the films’ producer at the theatre, and a revised offer of signing for two movies, both to be made in the UK, that they cautiously relented. His father, Alan, a literary agent, gave up his job to act as chaperone; scripts are read and decided on en famille (his mother is a casting director). There is no sign of imminent separation, nor the longing for autonomy that usually propels young men of his age towards a place of their own. It is as if his life as Potter has bound him closer to his parents, his anchors and protectors, just as other teenagers are pulling away.

He acted very little as a young child: miserable at Sussex House prep school, in Chelsea, he was put up for a role in the 1999 BBC adaptation of David Copperfield by his mother, in a bid to boost his confidence — “and do something other kids wouldn’t have done” — and won the role of young David opposite Bob Hoskins as Micawber. It was on location for his second film, John Boorman’s The Tailor of Panama, that he heard he was to play JK Rowling’s orphaned boy wizard, a promise of worldwide fame that would make his fellow Potter actor Robbie Coltrane declare that he wouldn’t let his son do it. Similarly, Boorman was apparently heard to remark, at the time, “Oh well, there goes his childhood ” — which makes Radcliffe indignant, for he disproves the common notion of a dysfunctional, indulged child star. The studios at Leavesden, just outside the bright lights of Watford, are hardly Hollywood Babylon, and he promises with an incredulous laugh that he was never offered drugs or booze on the Harry Potter set.

“We were kids in a theme park. I was swinging on the scaffolding, the bane of the costume department’s life, constantly dirty and ripping the clothes. Anyway, I’m surrounded by honest people who, at the slightest hint of arrogance in me, would be quick to say, hey, get back in your place.” Have they ever needed to say that? “I can’t remember it ever happening. Potter is far bigger than any one person. You have to know that. If I turned around and said I’m not doing the last two, there would be added interest and more people would go and see them.”

Although he has lived the past seven years in stellar adult company (notwithstanding his mate Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, with whom he bickers a bit), earning a fortune the size of which he has never asked (estimated at more than £5m), there is nothing about Radcliffe that seems more sophisticated or jaded than his years. Rather the opposite, in fact. He is clearly a ready protégé: respectful and grateful, an earnest learner from his extended family of Potter’s knighted thespians. Looking for a play, he had discussed doing The Browning Version, directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also brought him into talks for Equus (which Branagh originally intended to direct, though that role fell to Thea Sharrock). His admiration for Oldman is incandescent, and one can see that the talented welder’s son from south London would hold a special fascination for such a nicely brought-up public-school boy; as would the charisma of a short man, which Radcliffe, too, seems likely to remain. “Gary is 5ft 8in and skinny, but he is magnetic. I’m 5ft 5Åin, but I’m going to start calling myself 5ft 6in.”

Acting has rescued him. He was never academic or sporty; he disliked school; university never held much appeal; he probably won’t do his A-levels or return to formal education, though on the set of the next Potter movie, an English teacher will come in and read “difficult” books such as Ulysses with him, just for interest. He finds little in common with other boys his age, lacking the idling hours of a normal adolescence and the spontaneity for last-minute plans and hanging out. “It’s not that I think they are immature, but I don’t know what to say to them. I’m worried I might sound like I’m boasting, or might mention too many famous names. I find myself becoming overly timid and self-effacing, and watching what I say. I’m more comfortable with people who are a bit older, especially older girls, which is a real curse, because they are not interested in a younger guy.” Currently single, does he worry he might attract attention for the wrong reasons? He laughs. “Are you kidding? I’m 17, and as long as girls are interested in me, that’s fantastic.”

When he returned to City of London School between films, the younger boys were awestruck and the older ones picked on him, though he is generous enough to believe they weren’t driven by jealousy, merely by boredom and testosterone. “The insults were all pretty inane. It was just, ‘Ooh, there’s Harry Potter, let’s have a go.’ Because I spent time around adults, I was in a different place. I never got angsty about it. I could always say to myself that in six weeks I’d be back on set.” The “hormonal agonies” of his teenage years have helped him present an angrier, more questioning Harry in the fifth film, which, he reports with satisfaction, is darker and more intense: “Harry is going through the same stuff.”

Before that come Rod Hardy’s December Boys, his first nonPotter movie, an independent Australian project about four orphans competing for a family, and My Boy Jack, an ITV drama to be shown on Remembrance Day, in which he plays Rudyard Kipling’s myopic 17-year-old son, killed at the battle of Loos in 1915. “The film is about pro-war Kipling’s sense of loss and guilt,” he says, adding thoughtfully that his own family have never wanted him to be anything other than happy. Next year, he will be back on set in Leavesden, and though he is proud that so far the producers reckon “only 15%” of Equus tickets have been purchased by Potter maniacs, he can’t help but look forward to reconnecting with the character who has given him a career he never even knew he wanted.

“When I’ve shot the last scene of the last movie, I will be devastated. Harry Potter has provided my friends, seen me through my exams. I’ve had my first girlfriend, my first kiss. It’s been my life.” Does Harry need to die for Radcliffe to be finally free of him? “I want him to die because I have a melodramatic yearning for a death scene. And the prophecy in the fifth book says only one of Harry and Voldemort can live. Or is it that neither can live while the other survives? Oh God, what is it? The fans will kill me if I’ve got that wrong.”

Equus previews at the Gielgud Theatre, W1, from Feb 27. -- Lesley White, Times Online

New OOTP images
posted by Jas, 02/09/07
MSNBC has posted an interview with OOTP set designer Craig Stuart along with new images from the movie including a couple of Harry. You can also take a tour and zoom and explore the images.

Craig has designed all five 'Potter' films, and says that one of the joys of creating a magical world is that 'time is of no consequence. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is part medieval, part Victorian. The kids dress in jeans and T shirts, like in 2007, but they're surrounded by 1950s technology. They go to school by steam train. All these things from different periods are sort of slammed together.' He's currently at work designing the sixth film, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,' which begins shooting later this year.

Book 7 info
posted by Jas, 02/09/07
Dessendium has a video clip of an old interview with JK Rowling where she revealed a little bit of info about Harry in Book 7, watch video here. Thanks to UHP for the tip.

An interview with Joanna Christie
posted by Jas, 02/02/07
Joanna Christie, Dan's co-star in Equus, talks about working with Dan.

Joanna plays Jill Mason, who stars opposite 17-year-old Daniel's character, the disturbed stable-boy Alan Strang. In the play he blinds several horses with a hoof pick after a torrid sexual encounter with her. Joanna said: "Luckily I feel very comfortable with Dan. He and I get on really well and that definitely helps create a relaxed atmosphere in rehearsals. Because we both appear naked on stage we feel like we can support each other. There's a lot of pressure and I am sure Dan feels it, too.

When we first started rehearsing, it became a joke between us. But the nudity isn't gratuitous. It is beautiful and necessary to the play. When we're naked on stage, it's not me and Dan - it's the characters and it's our job to honour the play." Joanna added: "There have been photos of me on the front page of Indian newspapers. It has been bizarre, but exciting.

I expected some of it because, obviously, it was Daniel Radcliffe and he's famous. I think in a lot of people's minds he's still Harry Potter. I'd read the first two Harry Potter books and I'd seen Dan in some of the films, so it was weird to begin with. But we're over that now."

From Harry to hunk
posted by Jas, 02/01/07
In a new interview, Dan has commented on the Equus publicity photos released last week.

Daniel Radcliffe's naked torso, splashed across the media in advance of the 17-year-old's appearance in Equus, has been outright winner of macho cheesecake image of the week.

"When that boy takes his shirt off, Harry Potter has flown Hogwarts for good," observed the play's producer, David Pugh, adding, "We are not doing it as an excuse to show Harry Potter's willy." That said, his director, Thea Sharrock, was honest enough to admit:"We all said 'Wow', 'Oh my God', when we saw him."

Until now, Radcliffe has made no comment. "I'm fine about it," he tells me, grinning, still on a high from a long day's rehearsal. "Equus is an iconic play. The nude scene is part of it. I can't do it with my pants on. That would be rubbish."

Does he admit to any embarrassment? "We've done the scene a couple of times in rehearsal. I had no particular qualms. There's nothing that would stop me getting my kit off if that's what the work demands. The key to serious acting is to lose your inhibitions, to become free and fearless."

This quest for abandon is clearly working. As we speak, Radcliffe lifts his baggy T-shirt to scratch his stomach, offering a private view of a large expanse of flesh and navel hair. "I feel OK about my body.

"Not totally, of course, no one my age does ... but I've gone to the gym to make sure. And many of the actors I admire, like Gary Oldman, have gone naked."

Apart from a few celebrity slots in the Morecambe and Wise comedy The Play What I Wrote - when he was fully clothed, if in a dress - this is Radcliffe's first proper stage role. It marks a sharp upward gear-shift in his transition from child film star to serious adult actor.

JK Rowling's wizard, which he first took on seven years ago, remains part of his life for a while yet: the fifth Harry Potter is out this summer, with two more to go.

But Equus, Peter Shaffer's unsettling play about a boy's erotic obsession with horses, is a challenge on another level.

He plays the central role of Alan Strang, a passionate but hopeless adolescent who wilfully blinds six horses with a metal spike.

Martin Dysart, a middle-aged psychiatrist played by Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon in Harry Potter), tries to help him but in the process is forced to re-examine his own mental stability. The play's underlying questions concern the nature of ecstasy and passion in a soulless, consumer-dominated world.

After premiering amid huge controversy at the National Theatre in 1973, it ran for 1,200 performances in London and on Broadway with Peter Firth as Alan and Anthony Hopkins, then Anthony Perkins, as Dysart.

Richard Burton starred in the 1977 film. Equus retains its power to shock and to be misunderstood. Recently a drama teacher in Wales, accused of sexual abuse after staging the play at his school, committed suicide.

Radcliffe first knew about the part nearly two years ago. "Doing Harry is hard, without question. But this is a massive leap for me.

"Working with Richard Griffiths is a fantastic privilege. This feeling of being in a small company is so different from film where there are thousands involved yet you hardly get to see them. It's the most exhilarating thing I've ever done."

He praises the rest of the cast - which includes Jenny Agutter, who played Jill, a stable girl, in the original production - for their support.

Agutter is Dysart's friend, the magistrate Hesther Salomon, while his fellow teenager Joanna Christie plays Jill and is seen naked in a bungled love scene with Alan.

Radcliffe also has to enact sexual stimulation with a horse (played by a human wearing a wire headdress). "Everyone is being supportive," he says.

"The techniques are so different from film, even just the basics about projecting your voice without sounding as if you're yelling your head off - all that is new to me."

For the past 18 months Radcliffe has had daily voice coaching. Having completed AS levels (in English, history, religion and philosophy), he has taken this year off from City of London School.

He will re-evaluate in September. "I've never been to stage school, nor really wanted to go to university.

I didn't like school much, talked too much, got easily distracted. I'm lucky to have had one-to-one tuition while doing Harry Potter."

Despite his level-headedness, easy confidence and chin stubble, Radcliffe remains boyish and unexpectedly slight, physically.

He is still chaperoned by his father, who gave up his job as a literary agent when Harry Potter started.

An only child who grew up and still lives in Fulham with his parents - his mother is a casting director - he veers between the sociability and extroversion of acting and a solitude in which he writes poetry.

"When I'm not working I'm quite good at motivating myself. I read a lot. I write and hope to do more, but haven't had anything published yet.

"My main expense is buying books. The stress of exams is another matter - I find that hard to deal with alongside acting."

One pressure he will never face is the need to earn money. The Harry Potter films, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, have earned him £14 million.

He says he doesn't have expensive tastes and it's hard not to believe him. He's wearing old Diesel jeans and a pair of Dunlop trainers. His mobile phone is stuck together with Sellotape "because it still works".

He has no dreams of Maseratis or private jets, though is interested to hear of a new kind of green taxi which runs on electricity. His website lists several charities to which he gives support in person and in kind.

"My closest friends - who tend to be people I've met through working, like my best mate Will Steggle, who was my dresser on Harry Potter - just say to me, 'You're blessed. You don't need to worry.' I know I'm lucky to be paid all this money to do what I love doing."

Does he fear being prey to others' greed?

"My dad is sharp. He's rarely wrong about people. I hope I share some of those genes. It's only when people say 'You know, I'm not friends with you because you're Harry Potter' that I know they probably are."

He is equally phlegmatic about dealing with fame. "I can go to gigs and no one notices me." Recently he saw Radiohead and went to the Reading Festival.

"Clubs are harder, where people are just chatting and drinking. I haven't met any aggression but I suppose that might change when I reach 18."

Maintaining school friendships has been hard. Working to his kind of schedule, with eight to 10 months a year on Harry Potter, and now 16 weeks in the West End, requires a discipline outside the experience of most teenagers.

He has also been filming December Boys, directed by Rod Hardy, and will soon start work on My Boy Jack by David Haig, an ITV drama set in the First World War in which he plays Rudyard Kipling's son.

"I can't drop everything and go out late if I'm filming or rehearsing next day. After a day like today, I just want to go home and go to bed."

Radcliffe "is currently single", which will please the hordes of 13- and 14-year-old girls who follow his every movement via his website.

He scotches the one-time rumour that he was seeing an "older woman" of 23, who was just a friend.

"I think people are shocked that I've had girlfriends, which I have, and tend to think I'm a Peter Pan figure - but I'm definitely not, I promise you!"

Does he hope his young fans will see Equus, or should they be stopped from seeing such a dark, adult play?

"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't bring kids because of people taking their clothes off, or because of violence to horses.

But - and I don't want to insult the intelligence of children - really, a play about the nature of psychiatry? Do you think a five-year-old would be interested?"

Daniel Radcliffe throws on his jacket, pulls a cap down low over his famous bushy wizard-boy eyebrows, shakes hands cheerfully.

A lone paparazzo has been hanging around outside the rehearsal room all day. "I have to admire his persistence. But does he imagine I'm going to come out naked?

"I can see why people want images of so-called celebrities falling out of clubs drunk. But a boy actor leaving rehearsal and being driven home to his parents? I don't think so."

Equus previews at the Gielgud Theatre (020 7494 5065) from 16 February.

Book 7 out on July 21
posted by Jas, 02/01/07
From JKRowling.com: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 21st July 2007 at 00:01 BST in the UK and at 00:01 in the USA. It will also be released at 00:01 BST on Saturday 21st July in other English speaking countries around the world. Update: Book 7 is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com

brought to you by DanRadcliffeOnline.com