Daniel Radcliffe attends the press conference for “The F Word” on day 4 of the Toronto International Film Festival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2013, in Toronto. AP
TORONTO – Daniel Radcliffe has charted an ambitious course ever further from his Harry Potter days, taking on very different roles in no less than three films premiered at the Toronto film festival this week.
The former boy wizard flexed his acting chops in Michael Dowse’s romantic comedy “The F Word,” Alexandre Aja’s fantastical murder mystery “Horns” and as Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg in “Kill Your Darlings.”
“I’m excited that people will finally get a chance to see me do different stuff,” he said.
He chose these far more mature roles, based on scripts about murder and homosexuality, that he loved and responded to, he said.
“It certainly wasn’t a strategy that they’d all be at TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival).”
In “Horns,” based on Joe Hill’s dark novel of the same name, Radcliffe plays a young man who grows horns after being accused of killing his girlfriend and embarks to solve her murder, while as Ginsberg he is thrown into New York’s wild jazz scene and parties.
The latter includes a steamy sex scene with Radcliffe and another man.
“F-Word” meanwhile pairs Radcliffe as hopeless romantic Wallace with Chantry, played by Zoe Kazan, and takes them into a complicated world of modern relationships laced with memorable secondary characters such Chantry’s sister (Megan Park) and Wallace’s former college roommate (Adam Driver) and his partner (Mackenzie Davis).
Pressed repeatedly about his Potter years, and whether he has kept up friendships with his former Hogwarts classmates, Radcliffe confides that he has not spoken with Emma Watson in some time.
“I’m sure I’ll bump into her at one point,” he said. “But we were all together for 10 years so we’re excited to be going off and working with new people now.”
He said he doesn’t particularly miss Harry Potter, though is grateful for the memories and the doors it has opened for him.
“We had a fantastic time. But it’s really exciting to move on and doing other things.”
“I’ll always be incredibly proud of it. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you all if it weren’t for Harry Potter. I have no illusions about that. But I don’t particularly miss it. I’m very happy doing other things now.”