RADCLIFFE with Zoe Kazan in “What If,” where they play reluctant sweethearts.
LOS ANGELES—“Bacon is in every aspect of my life,” Daniel Radcliffe quipped, laughing, when asked about a scene in his new film, “What If,” where his character, Wallace, uses bacon as a key ingredient for what is called “fool’s gold” to seduce a woman.
Casually dressed for this recent interview, Daniel was sporting a beard. “I have a baby face when I shave,” he explained. “I like having just a bit of it (a beard).”
Back to the most pressing issue—does he also use bacon to flirt? “I don’t know if bacon is something I would use when seducing a woman because I am a terrible cook,” he replied. “But bacon would be a way to get to my heart, very quickly,” he added with a boyish grin.
“Someone asked the other day, if somebody wanted to cook for me, what dish should it be?” shared the actor, who continues his break from a certain blockbuster franchise with this indie rom-com directed by Michael Dowse. He plays a romantic lead for the first time, opposite Zoe Kazan. “I said there was this Canadian dish, poutine, that I discovered while doing this movie—it’s like French fries, cheese curds and gravy. I add bacon to it. So yeah, that would be the way to go.”
Romantic gestures
So, if he’s not into the art of seduction using bacon, what grand romantic gestures has he made? “I once flew to Ireland to surprise a girlfriend but that’s [not so] impressive because I lived in England then. It was like, 45 minutes on a plane,” Daniel related.
“I realized the other day—I don’t do enough romantic gestures,” admitted the 25-year-old who’s current girlfriend is Erin Darke. They met while filming “Kill Your Darlings” where he played Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
“I did try and surprise my girlfriend in New York once,” Daniel said. “But the night before, we were on the phone and she said she had had a crappy day. So I let the surprise go. I went, ‘I am coming tomorrow, by the way.’ What if she wasn’t home? A million things could happen.”
Spider-Man outfit
On attending the recent Comic-Con in San Diego while costumed as Spider-Man, Daniel sounded genuinely thrilled. “I couldn’t believe I had never been before. I wanted to experience it properly. You can’t go to Comic-Con and not go down on the floor. I think it has become a tradition for actors to put on masks to go down there. I had a thoroughly good time. I got to dress up as Spider-Man, which was a bit of youthful wish fulfillment.”
The actor went to the geek fest also to promote his drama/horror/fantasy film, Alexandre Aja’s “Horns.” He said, “Comic-Con was the perfect place to show the trailer of ‘Horns.’ I am incredibly proud of it as a movie.”
Asked to share the best and worst days in his life so far, Daniel replied, “It’s very hard to pick. I have an exciting, weird life which has offered a lot of cool moments. The most anxious or scared I have ever been professionally was on the night of the Tonys (in 2011) when we had to perform (a number from the musical, ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’).
“Even though we had been doing the show for six months at that time, there was still something about performing a musical number in New York, at the Tonys, in front of the entire Broadway community that was slightly scary, especially when the curtain went up and I was looking into the eyes of Al Pacino, whose face was the first one I saw.”
He vividly recalled the moment. “I was like, sure, Al likes bright, breezy musical numbers. But it was the best feeling ever when you completed it. It was fantastic but there was a moment right before [we performed] when your heart dropped suddenly into your stomach.”
Great day
The New York-based Brit continued, “As for the best day ever, I had a great one recently, before my birthday, when my girlfriend organized a surprise party for me. I went to this place called SPiN (co-owned by Susan Sarandon) in New York, one of those ping-pong clubs. I love table tennis and I’m very competitive at it. So I was very excited about that. We all went out for dinner.
“It was one of those moments of thinking, because I do have an odd life, that I was at this dinner [with] all my friends in New York. Some of them I had known all my life and had just moved to New York. It was one of those moments when you look at your life and go, ‘If all these people are here on my birthday, then I must be doing something right because I love all of them.”
Asked whether, as an actor, he approached falling in love with a man in “Kill Your Darlings” differently from romancing a woman in “What If,” Daniel chuckled as he answered, “No. You are just falling in love with somebody so you just find what is attractive about that person and think about that. I am not thinking, how would I fall in love with a man? How would I fall in love with a girl? How is that different? You don’t break down things into those. But I really like my own thing—approaching every scene the same way. It’s not whether it’s a man or a woman. It’s not something you factor into your preparation.”
Comfort zone
Having been an actor most of his young life, Daniel said he feels “happiest and most comfortable” on a film set. He explained, “That’s my place of comfort, where I feel totally at home. It’s the only place where no one cares who I am because everyone is used to actors and they are just grateful if you are not a horrible actor (laughs). I have done it for so long—nothing there fazes me.”
What annoys him occasionally is when rowdy folks yell out the name of his famous character to catch his attention. “You get a group of drunken, obnoxious— not necessarily English people but for the sake of ease, let’s call them English people,” he dished, chuckling. “You are out with some mates and they are shouting, ‘Harry Potter!’ or some joke. I do get annoyed because it’s like, ‘You are not funny. If you are going to make a joke, make it a good joke, something I haven’t heard before.’”
He stressed, “On the whole, when people talk to me about ‘Harry Potter,’ it’s fantastic. It’s only when people are drunk and obnoxious that I get a little bit like, ‘Okay, pal, you are annoying me.’ Other than that, I am very grateful. The people make you feel very nostalgic for it (‘Harry Potter’), which is a lovely thing.”
He added, “If there is a young kid in the family, and not even a young kid— maybe a teenager or anybody in their 20s, if they come up and are really excited and enthusiastic about ‘Harry Potter,’ then I understand.
“I do understand if a kid sees you and he goes, ‘Harry Potter!’ That’s what the kids know you from. A six-year-old kid isn’t going to say, ‘Kill Your Darlings!’ That wouldn’t be right (laughs). When I was doing the play, I would have people at the stage door every night telling me how much those films meant to them.”
He appreciates that most people call him by his real name, though. “Most of the time now, I get, ‘Are you Daniel Radcliffe?’ They know my name now, which is lovely.”
Behind the camera
Beyond his indie projects, Daniel hopes to work behind the camera someday. “I want to keep writing and hopefully direct something. I don’t know if that will be in the next five years, but I would like it to be in the next 10. I would love to direct music videos and then maybe move on to bigger stuff.
“I want to consolidate what I’ve done in the last five years and keep finding new work, keep acting and doing theater. Beyond that, it’s a little while longer before I think about family. But that’s something I would like to have, eventually.”
(E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben)