Daniel Radcliffe is still only 26, which seems young to be playing a hunchback. But Radcliffe's career has taken many unexpected turns since he starred as Harry Potter at age 11.
In a new interview, Radcliffe says he felt enormous pressure to live up to the success of Potter and accepts he'll never be as popular again. Instead he's happy being "weird" and wants to set the record straight on an embarrassing rumour.
Although Radcliffe is worth an estimated $AU140 million, NME's Olly Richards noted his less-than-mainstream choices since Potter - the latest of which is playing the hunchback Igor in Victor Frankenstein (due out in Australia in March 2016) - making him "Britain's weirdest film star". He's also gone nude for a theatre production, played a haunted lawyer, a murder suspect who grows horns, iconic Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and taken the risk of rapping on American television.
"Isn't having weird tastes good, though? I think so," Radcliffe told NME. "I think that's better than always wanting to play the handsome hero. You think I'm weird? I'll take that."
Victor Frankenstein hasn't received the best early reviews; Radcliffe says the film "doesn't take itself too seriously, but it has a nice intellectual debate at the heart of it."
The film is not a sign he's about to chase a major role like Potter again. "Frankenstein was just the most interesting and original script I'd seen from a studio. It looked like fun to make, and it was."
Radcliffe admits he was conscious of the perception of child stars - who can blame him with a list like Michael Jackson, Macaulay Culkin, Amanda Bynes and Lindsay Lohan.
"I had a huge amount to prove ... proving that you can be a young actor and not be a complete f---ing disaster when you grow up," Radcliffe said.
"That is the ... image that people have of young actors. There are a huge number of child actors who grow up fine.
"I'm sure I'll never hit that kind of commercial peak again but very, very few people will."
Radcliffe also took the chance to clear up an unfortunate falsehood which proliferated on the internet after he was interviewed by Playboy magazine this year. In it, Radcliffe admitted to a habit that most boys engage in - masturbation. Indeed he "started early - before my teens", an admission that no doubt fuelled many mischievous social media posts.
So for the record: "Can you make this clear for me: I was not [doing that] during the filming of Potter – I managed to restrain myself."
