DANIEL Radcliffe (pictured) says he finds the concept of celebrity and the level of interest in the trivia of actors’ lives “weird”.
While promoting his romantic comedy – What If, directed by Michael Dowse – the 25-year-old British star was keen to keep the conversation away from his own love life. Radcliffe is rumoured to be dating his Kill your Darlings co-star Erin Drake.
“People ask me about my relationship and I try to give as little away as possible,” Radcliffe said. “People are dying in the world, give time to that.”
And yet despite his best efforts to keep quiet about his personal life, the former Harry Potter star still finds he is tabloid fodder.
“That gets turned into a story in itself,” he said. “‘Oh, you’ve been really open about this.’ ‘No, I haven’t. I was just, like, trying to keep my mouth shut.’”
Radcliffe was happy, however, to talk about his career choices post-Harry Potter. Since leaving the boy wizard behind him, he has sought out challenging roles and embraced on-screen nudity.
Whether portraying beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill your Darlings, or skinny-dipping in What If, Radcliffe joked that he wasn’t “intentionally” seeking out roles in which he could appear naked.
Yet it all comes naturally now after a stint in Equus back in 2007 where he stood in the nude on stage night after night.
“Doing it on stage when I was 17 kind of makes you go ‘meh’ about anything else after that,” he explained.
What If stars Radcliffe pining for his character’s best friend, played by actress Zoe Kazan. It opens tomorrow in the UK. – Sapa-AP