Pace Press

Issue date: 10/15/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

With a newly grown, yet sparse, beard and crisp gray suit, Daniel Radcliffe stepped onto the stage at the University's Michael Schimmel Center amidst frenzied cheering and shrieking from the mostly female crowd. As Radcliffe took his seat across from Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton, he scanned the crowd bemusedly.

"This is really easy," he said. "I don't even have to say anything…Wow, this is a huge glass."

Born on July 23, 1989, Daniel James Radcliffe is most renowned for his role as Harry Potter in the movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling's book series. Since his acting career launched, there have been a slew of projects - both for the silver screen and television - in which he proved to the critics just how versatile and daring he can be. Perhaps the most notable of these endeavors is his starring role in Peter Shaffer's play, Equus, now on Broadway.

Radcliffe was born to a Northern Irish Protestant father and a Jewish mother, both of whom were initially adamant against their son entering the entertainment industry due to their religious piety. At around 12 years old, Radcliffe became decidedly less religious. "I realized I can't believe more out of fear than anything else," he said. Ultimately, his folks backed him in his ambitions.

"I was crap at everything." Radcliffe laughed, telling Lipton that back in school, he was neither exceptional in academics or athletics. Radcliffe's mother hoped that acting would help her son break out of his shell and watched him grow first in a small production of Aladdin at age five; David Copperfield, in which he starred with Maggie Smith (Harry Potter's Professor McGonagall); then in The Tailor of Panama, alongside Pierce Brosnan. Despite these early forays into the world of drama - he amusingly compares his transformation to a "baby photo slideshow" - Radcliffe admits that he is still somewhat shy.
"I'm very good with adults," he said. "I only have a few friends my age…It's sort of hard to talk to people." He likens this and several of his other idiosyncrasies to the character of Harry Potter.

"Many young children live through their imagination. Did
you?" inquired Lipton. "Yes, and I still do," Radcliffe responded. "I have this fascination with the world. I like to observe weird things like how a door closes, or the grates on a subway platform."

Although he allows that he cannot even begin to imagine what Rowling's protagonist's loss of his parents could have felt like, Radcliffe said that like Harry, he too has an "innate curiosity about the world…We have very good friends too."

Continued...

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