Daniel Radcliffe was “terrified” of Alan Rickman at first meeting: “He hates me”
Daniel Radcliffe has recalled how he was “terrified” of the late Alan Rickman at one of their first meetings and was worried that “he hated” him.
Speaking on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast which you can see below, Radcliffe was played a clip by host Josh Horowitz that was taken from an interview he did with Rickman interview in 2016 – something Radcliffe had never seen. Rickman and Radcliffe were co-stars for a decade in the Harry Potter film series.
In the footage, Rickman praises Radcliffe. “As much as I was doing it for seven weeks, they were doing it for 52 weeks,” Rickman said about the child actors on the Harry Potter movies (as per Variety).
“This was their life from 12 to 22. And you would watch it from the sidelines at times and throw the odd lifeline in because there was so little time for that. It’s only in recent years that I’ve managed to sit down in a cafe with Daniel in New York. He was at a theatre and I was at another. Huge pride to go to see him in the musical [How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying]. How dare he be dancing as well as the New York dancers. He worked at it.”
Radcliffe was visibly moved by the clip of Rickman, who died in 2016 aged 69.
“Thanks for showing that. I’ve never seen that before. Thank you,” Radcliffe began. “I was so intimidated by Alan Rickman. How can you not be by that voice? Even hearing that voice you forget quite how low it was until it echoes through you. I was so intimidated by him for the first three movies. I was terrified by him and was like, ‘This guy hates me.’ Somewhere along the lines he saw that I really wanted to do this and work at it.”
He went on to explain how much Rickman went on to support him in his career. “He cut short a vacation in Canada to come and see me in ‘Equus.’ He saw every piece of stage work I did when he was alive,” Radcliffe continued.
“He would take me out afterwards and we would talk about it. He was one of the first people to say like, ‘You should look at voice coaching and investigate all this stuff.’ I am so lucky. To hear him say that is really lovely.”
Earlier this year, The Lost City starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe topped the Netflix UK film chart.
In a three-star review of 2022’s The Lost City, NME described it as “not cutting-edge entertainment” but a “decent action film boasting a great cast and some good jokes”.
In the same year as The Lost City, Radcliffe played the lead role in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story opposite Evan Rachel Wood and Rainn Wilson.
Last year, Radcliffe starred in documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, about one of his stunt doubles on Harry Potter who was paralysed following an accident on set.
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Elizabeth Aubrey
NME
