Daniel Radcliffe recently participated in a video interview with ScreenRant and urged reporters not to ask new Harry Potter actors questions about the original cast. Dominic McLaughlin will take over the lead role in HBO’s Harry Potter reboot, opposite Arabella Stanton as Hermione and Alastair Stout as Ron.
“When these kids were cast, the internet was like, ‘We need to take care of these kids!'” Radcliffe said. “If you really want to, one thing you can do is stop hearing about us, me, Emma (Watson) and Rupert (Grint) 24/7. I don’t want to be some weird ghost in these kids’ lives. Just let them get used to it. It’s going to be new and different. I’m sure Dominic is better than me.”
Radcliffe revealed on Good Morning America last year that he wrote a letter to McLaughlin after it was announced that the newcomer had been selected to appear on HBO’s The Boy Who Lived. The young actor later said that having Radcliffe’s support was “insane” and “almost drove me crazy.”
“I wrote to Dominic, sent him a letter, and he wrote back a very sweet letter,” Radcliffe said. “I don’t want to be a ghost in these kids’ lives, but I just wanted to write him a letter and say, ‘I hope you’re having the best time, and I hope you’re having an even better time than I am. I had a lot of fun, but you’re even better. I hope you have a great time.’ And I do, and I just look at these pictures of him and the other kids and I just want to hug them. They just look so young. I look at them and just say, ‘Oh, it’s crazy that I was doing that at that age.’ But it’s also incredibly sweet and I hope they’re having a great time. ”
Rupert Grint similarly wrote to Alastair Stout when he took over the role of Ron Weasley. As Grint told the BBC last year, “I wrote him a letter before I left and passed the baton, so to speak. It was really just wishing him the best. It was so much fun stepping into this world that I hope he has the same experience… It’s very strange that this cycle would happen again. I’m really interested to see how it goes.”
Although Radcliffe’s “Harry Potter” experience is dear to his heart, he told ScreenRant that he has only seen his own “Potter” movies once or twice. He quipped that he’s actually excited to show his kids the HBO reboot.
“I’ll probably show it to my kid so he doesn’t have to look at me,” Radcliffe said. “I think it’s more fun. I probably enjoy it more…I don’t like watching myself. Most of the time. I want to watch more of the early movies, because I’ve been away from them for so long. When I was 18 or 10, I was embarrassed to see myself at 10 or 11.”
Watch Radcliffe’s full interview with ScreenRant in the video below.
