Maybe it’s all those years of playing a wizard but Daniel Radcliffe has pulled off something close to magical. He became the cinematic face of one of literature’s most beloved characters and came out the other side with his career and sanity intact.
Radcliffe, 34, currently stars on Broadway in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. That role has earned him a Tony® nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.
He’s built an impressive track record with roles in a variety of films, plays and television. Over eight films in 10 years, though, Radcliffe portrayed the titular hero of J.K. Rowling’s massively successful series of novels about student-wizards. The movie series proved just as popular, grossing almost $10 billion worldwide.
Radcliffe knew he couldn’t play Potter forever, and made his public declaration of adulthood on stage.
At 17, he played troubled stableboy Alan Strang in a West End revival of Equus. The click bait was that the role included Radcliffe performing a scene in the nude. The real takeaway was that the boy wizard played a dangerous, disturbed character in a way that one critic described as “genuinely scary.”
Radcliffe continued in the role when the production moved to Broadway, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination.
Radcliffe has proven himself as adept onstage as he is in front of the camera, and his list of credits include several stage roles in addition to his movie and television appearances.
His next Broadway appearance was as J. Pierrepont Finch, the ambitious window-washer, in the 2011 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. After the intensity of Equus, the musical let Radcliffe stretch is comedic muscles to raves from audiences and critics alike.
He took the lead role in The Cripple of Inishmaan, a jet-black comedy of deception and small-town cruelties. The play opened at London’s Noël Coward Theatre before moving to Broadway, with Radcliffe continuing in the lead role.
He’s appeared on and off Broadway in challenging works such as Privacy and The Lifespan of a Fact. Like his movie roles (a man with firearms bolted to his hands in Guns Akimbo; a chatty, flatulent corpse in Swiss Army Man; “Weird Al” Yankovic), his stage roles seem to be chosen based on how interesting they are, not on their potential payday. Being a multi-millionaire before you’re old enough to drive allows for such freedom.
Merrily fits in well with Radcliffe’s eclectic resume. It’s the first Broadway revival for Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince’s 1981 musical which famously flopped in its first run. The latest production is enjoying a markedly better reception from critics and audiences alike.
As for Radcliffe, he’s reaping the benefits of his refusal to be pigeonholed. Being a decent sort helps as well, as he’s won praise from fellow actors for his professionalism, lack of arrogance and devotion to his craft. In interviews, he comes across as intelligent, witty, self-effacing and empathetic.
Even his back-and-forth with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling over her anti-trans stance has found him taking the high road.
He’s a breath of fresh air in a world of entitled, scandal-prone celebrities. We’ll learn if he can add the title Tony Award®-winner at the ceremonies, scheduled for June 16.