Credit: Inside the MagicDaniel Radcliffe spent a decade playing The Boy Who Lived – and that’s enough for him.
Debuting as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), Daniel Radcliffe was the main man of the series until its end in 2011. Over the years, audiences watched as he grew up in real-time alongside his character – honing his craft offscreen while fighting dragons, Dementors, and the Dark Lord onscreen.
Since graduating from the franchise, Radcliffe has shared his own discontent with his portrayal of Harry. While praising it as “an incredible blessing,” he’s also described his acting as “complacent” and “one-note.” He’s singled out Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) as his least favorite performance, claiming, “I’m just not very good in it. I hate it.”
Regardless of his own feelings, fans haven’t ruled out hope that Radcliffe will return – at least for a cameo – in the upcoming HBO reboot of the series. Set to adapt each of the seven books, one season at a time, this will see an entirely new cast step into the shoes of the Wizarding World’s biggest players, including Harry Potter.
Now 33 years old, obviously Radcliffe was never going to reprise the part of Harry himself. However, the internet has tossed around the idea of him playing Harry’s father, James Potter, a Hogwarts Professor, or even Sirius Black – who was portrayed by Radcliffe’s acting idol, Gary Oldman, in the films.
But Radcliffe himself isn’t so keen. In a recent interview with Deadline, Radcliffe insisted that “it’d probably be weird to have me pop in.”
He’s made his peace with another actor playing Harry. In his opinion, “Harry Potter was always destined to become like Sherlock Holmes… so it’ll get passed on.” However, he has already started thinking about how it’ll impact his replacement’s life.
“The weird thought I have is that there’s probably an eight-year-old kid out there somewhere whose life is going to change in a couple of years,” he said. “My brain does go there.” He added that “it’s nice to pass it on to someone else.”
Not everyone has been quite as accepting. Upon HBO’s announcement of its new “faithful adaptation,” some fans announced plans to boycott the “decade-long” reboot – in no small part due to controversy surrounding JK Rowling’s ongoing comments on the transgender community. She’s previously compared transgender activists to Death Eaters, as well as admitting that she knew some Harry Potter fans would turn against her amidst her campaign of transphobia, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF), and anti-gender-affirming care. Rowling herself is unmoved by plans to boycott HBO’s reboot, sarcastically noting that she’s ordered a “large stock of champagne” to help her through this tough time.
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