Daniel Radcliffe Wasn't A Huge 'Harry Potter' Fan When The Book First Came Out
Jun 24, 2014, 22:53 IST
Robin Marchant/Getty Images Friday afternoon we headed over to Buzzfeed headquarters to hear Daniel Radcliffe speak about his Broadway show "The Cripple of Inishmann" and reminisce about the decade he spent filming the "Harry Potter" movies.
While the book series by J.K. Rowling has sold more 450 million copies, the actor, who went on to play lead character Harry, said he wasn't always a big fan of the books.
"I only read the first two and I wasn't really as into it as everyone else in my class was just because I wasn't really a reader," said Radcilffe. "I was like oh books, I'm not ready."
Radcliffe said his first experience with the books, which first came out in 1997, was with his father reading them to him.
"I remember he did an excellent voice of the basilisk which used to terrify me," said Radcliffe.
That didn't last long.
After he landed the part of the young wizard, Radcliffe said he was engulfed in the series.
He was so into the books, that Radcliffe recalled he used to act out the books in his bedroom pretending he was Harry Potter.
"I kind of got into it later. And then when I got the part what was interesting … was that I was reading the fourth book when we started making the first movie and I remember being in my hotel room in Newcastle when we were about to go out and shoot the first scenes on the platform at 9 and three quarters and everything. And I remember being in my room reading passages of the book and getting really excited and pretending to be Harry in character in the books, jumping around my room acting out bits of what I would then be acting out for real like six years later."
Warner Bros. is now working on a new trilogy of "Harry Potter"-related movies based off the book "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them," one of Harry's school books.
Radcliffe will not be involved in the films, but he said that's okay after having worked 10 years on his own series of Potter movies.
"I can enjoy watching it grow and go on without feeling like, 'Oh I wish I was there,'" added Radcliffe.