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JJJJJDaniel Radcliffe Talks
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Daniel Radcliffe Talks
Monsters!
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2. The casting in the title role of the Harry
Potter franchise made Daniel Radcliffe
a household name and with the series
finished he moved onto a variety of roles to
acclaim both in the theatre (notably in the
award winning Equus) and film where he’s
taken dark roles in Horns and The Woman
in Black which went onto become the
most successful British horror film ever,
making over £100m worldwide.
When we first meet Daniel he bounds
into the room unshaven, casually dressed
but with a huge smile. In the flesh he is
noticeably different from his on screen
persona with unusually piercing eyes but
perhaps more surprisingly is his slight
build. It’s difficult to reconcile that this
immensely friendly actor at only 26 years
old is, according to the Times Rich List the
wealthiest actor under 30 in the UK today
with an estimated fortune in excess of £60m.
Since the Potter franchise finished
in 2011 Daniel has continued with an
incredibly busy workload but he was
briefly in London talking about his new
film, Victor Frankenstein where he appears
as the hunchback Igor to James McAvoy’s
title character. The Frankenstein story has
been made so many times it’s difficult to
keep count or indeed to come up with a
new angle but Max Landis (son of director,
John) has written a story which is almost a
‘bromance’ between the two as they work
on creating life from death culminating in
the famous monster.
Daniel was frank and forthcoming, polite
and positive as we spoke to him about the
latest take on the Frankenstein story.
SCREAM: You’re not even 30 yet but you’ve
achieved a position where I’d suggest you’re
influential enough to green light a project
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Well no not quite
but I’m very flattered and I’ll take the
compliment (Laughs).
SCREAM: Well the story of Frankenstein
has had a quite a chequered history in
terms of cinematic success so this must be
a bit of a gamble to make another film and
there must be a bit of pressure on you?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Well I take all
the pressure off myself by not worrying
about those sort of things. I don’t think,
‘How is this going to fit into the cannon of
Frankenstein?’ You can never strategise for
what’s going to be a success. You just go,
‘What excites me and what do I like?’ so I
don’t think there was ever a feeling of, ‘Oh
this is a weighty thing we’re undertaking
here’ and also because we’re doing
something that is so different from the
book there was never a moment I thought,
‘How are the people who like the book
going to feel about this?’ because I know
they’re going to hate it. It’s so different from
the book that if people go into it with that
expectation it will definitely disappoint.
SCREAM: I gather that Shawn Levy from
the Night at the Museum films was going
to direct this originally but dropped out.
What happened there?
Words: Simon Hooper
DANIEL RADCLIFFE TALKS MONSTERS!
VICTOR
FRANKENSTEIN
VICTOR
FRANKENSTEIN
28 www.screamhorrormag.comSCREAM
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I don’t know,
you’d have to ask him. He went on to do
something else. I really don’t know, it went
quiet for a while and then they came back
with Paul McGuigan which I immediately
was very excited by because the one
thing that I had been concerned about in
the prior incarnation of the script I read
...obviously it was written by Max (Landis)
a young American guy and Shawn is
American. I mean American’s love writing
English people and love writing English
characters to be very verbose, which is
great and fits Victor perfectly but I felt that
some of the baddies in it were a little bit...
they were bad English people as written
by an American who still can’t quite help
but find us charming whereas when Paul
came along we said, ‘No’. I suppose what
I’m saying is that my problem with that is
it seems like Victor would just run rings
round these guys and there wasn’t a real
threat from them to Victor and so when
Paul came on that was one of the first
things we talked about including Andrew
(Scott) for that role which was great and
that’s how that needs to be.
SCREAM: Have you had much say in
getting the script changed?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Not hugely. Me and
James did a week of rehearsal where we
went through the script and could say what
we thought worked and what didn’t and
they were very open to that process.
SCREAM: In some scenes there does
seem to be a bit of ad-libbing going on.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: There is a bit but
not much. The good thing about Max’s
script is the dialogue does feel quick and
snappy and natural. You’ve seen it more
recently than me so you’ll remember it
better but the one thing that was totally
James was the scene where he’s doing
my back and siphoning it off. That thing
was never supposed to go in his mouth it
wasn’t in the script it was James having
two hands free and saying, ‘Well if I had
a hand free this is how you would do it’.
That was great and it was our first scene
together. It was like,‘Great! This is what it’s
going to be like together’.
SCREAM: Now the hair in this is a little bit
acid house raver in a field. I presume those
were extensions you’re wearing?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Yes for six months!
SCREAM: That must be incredibly
uncomfortable?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I ended up actually
liking it because I could pull it down over
my face and be sort of hidden. My girlfriend
did not like it.
SCREAM: It’s not your best look!
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: (laughs) Well it
kind of is! The thing is I love it when it’s all
shaggy and crazy and messy. It was great
and then I think people were suddenly
unsure what they wanted with the hair so
they started straightening it out. I said, ‘Do
we need to do that?’ but it works. Originally
it looked crazier and that was my idea for
him having all this kind of mad hair it would
get dirty and wouldn’t get much better but
I think they wanted me looking a bit more
polished after the transformation.
SCREAM: I’ve got to talk about the
Monster. At what point did you become
aware of what it would look like? You’ve got
two guys, Spencer and Guillame playing it
and with all that’s going on in those scenes
it can’t have been easy for anyone.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I’m glad they both
get credit because it was hard on both of
them. We were under rain machines for
3 weeks and they wear wearing nothing
except those prosthetics and they were
freezing. Rain machine rain is big and
cold. They had a tough time. I suppose I
first became aware of what the monster
looked like really early on actually. Paul
was showing me concepts and designs for
it and he was always very insistent that it
be played by an actor rather than entirely
a visual effect and that we had something
there to interact with. I’m fine with CGI. I’ve
done a lot with it but it’s definitely much
nicer to have something there.
SCREAM: You’ve done quite a bit of horror
in the past with The Woman in Black and
Horns and now this.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Well I’d say the
pedigree of this is horror.
SCREAM: So what’s the attraction of these
much darker subjects?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: It’s absolutely not to
do with horror or fantasy. No! It is to do with
fantasy not necessarily horror. I love films that
do what they like, that explore other worlds or
explore the mixing of other worlds with ours.
I find that most of what I read is sort of not
fantasy necessarily but magical realism.
SCREAM: Do you not like horror?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: I do like horror but
I’m scared shitless by it as well. It’s not
the reason I pick these films because I’m
a horror fan but given what people come
to expect from horror movies this... well,
there’s a couple, of moments that will make
you jump in this movie.
SCREAM: You say horror films scare you...
an example would be?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: An example would
be… I’m one of those people that will see
the trailer for The Babadook and I’ll go, ‘Oh,
I can’t watch that!’
SCREAM: So it’s more creepy films than
blood guts and gore.
29www.screamhorrormag.com SCREAM

3. DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Oh no, they would
creep me out too. I don’t watch those they
would just traumatise me. I’ll still watch the
blood guts and gore but...
SCREAM: But Woman in Black is still very
creepy.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Oh I would never
have watched that if I hadn’t been in it. No, I
get really freaked out.
SCREAM: James Watkins, the director, did
a great job on that film.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: It was great fun to
make. There’s something about making a
movie – the bit where we had a face on the
window pane and her face coming up...
when James explained what we were doing
I thought, ‘Oh this is great. This’ll scare the
shit out of people’. There’s a real sort of
sadistic joy you get out of doing that. You
know there’s always one boy in every class
who’s like 8 years old who has a party and
they all watch Scream or something and I’m
like, ‘NO’, that would scare me too much.
I watched Alien when I was really young
and that was too much. Why do we watch
all these things when we were so young?
Terrible. I was always the kid who’d have to
leave the room.
SCREAM: So do you have a favourite
horror film?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: One of my favourites
which is because I was doing Woman in
Black was James’ first movie Eden Lake. I
love those films where this could happen. It
is horror but could also very much happen
and that the fact that the ending of that film
gives me confidence that you could write
any type of ending you fucking like. It does
not have to be happy, not everything has to
be resolved, you can end it with a punch to
the gut.
SCREAM: Yes it had the confidence to
have a downbeat ending.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Exactly and it’s such
a huge thing that everyone’s, ‘Oh, you can’t
do that!’ No! You can! What happened to
these people is terrible.
SCREAM: But the position you’re in now
you do have the sway to get the script
changed.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Yes well definitely.
I mean the end of this script was different
because it was absolutely teeing up a
sequel in the most obvious way. I mean
you just cut to James and I and we were
in a new setting, I mean a very different
setting. We’re not in Victorian England
anymore we’re in another part of the world
and James had the same reaction. When
we met at rehearsal the first thing we talked
about was, ‘We can’t do that!’ I always feel
there’s something very presumptuous about
doing that. I mean let’s just concentrate
on making one good film before we think
of another and also like... I can’t speak for
James entirely but I’ve done a franchise,
he’s currently in a franchise and neither of
us are looking for another one right now. It
still leaves it open but you should have seen
what was there before.
SCREAM: Did you speak to Max about it?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: We spoke to Paul
about it, absolutely. I’ve not had a huge
amount of interaction with Max about the
script but it was mostly done with Paul. I
don’t like it when I see it in other movies
and I didn’t want to be part of that.
SCREAM: Ahh, so you are in a position to
change things.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Yes but earlier
you said to green light a film which is very
different and there’s not many people who
can do that.
SCREAM: But your name does sell a film.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: It helps but it
doesn’t sell it entirely but it helps which is a
great position to be in but I wouldn’t want
anyone reading this to think that I can get a
green light on my own. No, no, no.
SCREAM: I know your character died in the
first Woman In Black film but you didn’t get
involved with the sequel.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Well it’s a supernatural
film so there were ways of coming back but
I didn’t feel that was for me, no.
SCREAM: Thanks for talking to SCREAM,
Daniel.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Thank you so much.
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN opens in the UK
on December 4th.
30 www.screamhorrormag.comSCREAM