The Boy Who Lived. A farting corpse. Iconic writer Allen Ginsberg. A guy with horns sprouting from his head. Soon, Weird Al Yankovic. Daniel Radcliffe has quite the CV, and when it comes to sheer variety and range in the roles he chooses, the Harry Potter star is tough to beat. For The Lost City, he enters full-blown villain mode as Abigail Fairfax, an eccentric billionaire who kidnaps author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) in the hopes she’ll lead him to an ancient city’s lost treasure featured in one of her books. With The Lost City out in UK cinemas from tomorrow, Radcliffe stopped by the Empire Podcast to talk all about it, as well as his top Sandy B movies, his love for The Mummy, the Potter 20th anniversary reunion, and much much more. Read the highlights below, and listen to the full Empire Podcast episode here.
You play the villain in The Lost City – the incredibly named Abigail Fairfax. How did you first come across the project?
Daniel Radcliffe: I read the script! I got sent the script around March last year, and they started shooting in June or July. I have a vague blanket rule – make the films you would want to see. I read this, and I had recently watched the first The Mummy movie again. We had a moment watching that going, "Oh, there are no films like this anymore! It's sad". And then I read this, and I was like, "Oh, this is one of them". When I was reading it, I knew that Sandra and Channing Tatum were the leads, and I was just reading it thinking, I want to see this. I want to see them play these parts and do these scenes, and if I get to be in it and be a part of it, then even better. But yes, I play Abigail Fairfax. On the shoot, we checked into all our hotels under our character names. But then everyone at the hotel thought it was proper and right to call you by whatever you checked in as. So whenever I went anywhere in the hotel, they would say "Ah, yes, Mr. Abigail". I was like, "Yes, yes, that's me."
You're playing this dapper, villainous sociopath. How did it feel to be offered that kind of role?
Oh, that was great. I think directors go one of two ways with me. Maybe less so now, but after Potter in particular, if 50% of directors only saw me as one thing and only saw me as Harry, then the other 50% were excited by the chance to be the people who showed me as something else. I think these directors were really excited about getting to show me as this sociopathic villain. But he's also a very funny villain, to me. There's something so pathetic about all of his motivations. It's the idea that, obviously, no one's the villain of their own story, so he thinks he's really cool and nice, and he's kidnapping Sandra's character, all the while thinking, "If you really think about it, you'll find being kidnapped is fun! If you realise what a cool opportunity this is.” That was a very, very funny aspect of this character for me. And just to work with Sandra and Channing and get to play around with them in those scenes. I obviously grew up on the Potter films with Maggie Smith and Richard Harris and all these people who were legends and amazing, and I was aware of their status as those things, but I wasn't familiar with their films. I hadn't watched A Man Called Horse when I was 12 or whatever. Working with Sandy was a real 'pinch yourself' moment, because I did grow up watching her, and have been a fan of hers for so long. So to actually get to be in a movie with her is still mind-blowing to me.
What was your Sandra Bullock movie growing up?
I actually saw Speed relatively late in life; it was only a few years ago, probably. But that is an all-time great movie. I would say the other favourites would be: Miss Congeniality, I remember going to cinema for that one; While You Were Sleeping; I was reminded earlier of Infamous, the film she did with Toby Jones about Capote. She's just had such an incredible career. While You Were Sleeping is a perfect romcom in a lot of ways. That's a Christmas movie in our house, so we rewatch that every year. It was weirder watching it last year and being like, "Oh, I've worked with this person now". That's cool. She encourages you to call her Sandy, and I would do that, and then if I was talking to any of my friends at home and said ‘Sandy’, they were like, "Oh! Sandy, is it?!" And I'm like, "Yes, I know, it sounds weird, but she's asked me to."
You mentioned that everyone is the hero of their own story, and for Abigail Fairfax, that's maybe the case. But from everyone else's perspective, he is an all-out, cackling, waving-his-gun-around sort of villain. Was that fun for you to play?
Oh, absolutely. There's a rich tradition of English actors being the bad guys in American movies. When you watch those kinds of performances, like Tim Curry or Alan Cumming, these people who are great at playing bad guys, they seem to really revel in it. There is something about watching those actors where the theme is – and I'm a very different actor from both of those people – but the theme is that you see how much they are enjoying it. I think that was the thing for me – yeah, I was nervous going in, because I was working with Sandy and Channing and all that, but you've got to just go in and play and have fun and enjoy being this insane person. There were no specific influences or people that I drew from, but I think generally, it's a bit of a rite of passage, being the English bad guy in something.
[On the Harry Potter reunion] "There is something lovely and full circle about having adult conversations with people that you had only had children's conversations with before."
Did you enjoy working on those big, ancient tomb-like sets?
There's definitely some childhood wish fulfilment in that, especially on Potter. Even though I was actually a child on those amazing sets, I still viewed them and treated them like a sort of playground, and like it was somewhere cool to run around. I still think I have a bit of that attitude when I walk onto those kinds of sets. But also, with this one, other than the tomb at the end, there's almost no sets in the whole thing. We filmed the whole thing in the jungle, and I do think you can just sense it. You feel it differently when the camera pulls out and you're seeing Channing and Sandy in the jungle rather than on what you can probably tell is a soundstage somewhere in LA. You feel the magnitude of the place more. We were very lucky to get to shoot in the Dominican Republic.
About a year ago, you were on the cover of Empire magazine along with Elijah Wood celebrating the 20th anniversary of Potter and Lord Of The Rings. During that, you guys were talking about meeting up in person. Has that happened yet?
It hasn't! We have emailed but we have not actually connected in person. But it will happen. I'm pretty confident about that. It was such a nice, oddly cathartic conversation, that I feel at some point we will meet in person.
On New Year's Day, we got to see the Return To Hogwarts anniversary special. A few months removed from it, how do you feel about that reunion?
It was really lovely. I'm really, really glad we did it. It is double-edged, going back. If they'd done a five year anniversary – which would have been silly, but if they had done that – I'm not sure I would have been able to go. It would have been a different-feeling thing. I think the place I'm at in my life allowed me to feel good to go back. And it was honestly great. There is something lovely and full circle about having adult conversations with people that you had only had children's conversations with before. That was really, really cool. Particularly with Helena [Bonham Carter] and Chris Columbus and Gary [Oldman], but then also people like the Phelps twins [James and Oliver, who play the Weasley twins]. That was an interesting one. Because, you know, we were very friendly on the films, but they were older. I was 11 when we started, they were 14 or 15, and at that age, that is a massive gulf. Now, we're all just men in our 30s, and that age difference flattens out in a really nice way. It was lovely to see everybody, and see how everyone has kind of come out okay. It was something that made me really proud, actually, of all of us.
Has anything come off the back of that reunion special? Have there been more meet-ups? Have you guys got a WhatsApp group?
Just more chatting. It reignited a few conversations that we maybe had...you know, when you haven't spoken to someone in a while, it can feel awkward reaching out, and actually that event brought us back together. It's made communication start flowing again, which is very nice.
That was all for the 20th anniversary of Philosopher's Stone – but it's now 2022, which means it's the 20th anniversary of Chamber Of Secrets.
Right? Yeah, it's great. We've got a 20 year anniversary every year.
What are your memories of shooting that film?
The first film, we were shooting for 11 months. The second film was just under that, it was 9 or 10. But we did two months of shooting that they didn't count as principal photography, when we were doing the flying car stuff. So my memories of that film are really the flying car sequence – me and Rupert [Grint] being in the Ford Anglia for about two months. The actual Chamber of Secrets set is still one of the coolest sets I've ever been on. It was massive, and it was real, and I got to really climb that thing at the end. I remember Ken Branagh – Ken was in that one and was so charming, and really naughty with the younger actors in terms of making us laugh. There would be scenes where we'd be trying not to laugh, and Ken would see that and be like, "I'm gonna get you to go". But it was very, very funny and sweet. And yeah, working with Chris. I remember the moment on the second film where Chris came in and said that he wouldn't be doing any more films. He came in to talk to us about that. I remember being pretty like, "Whoa, what happens now?" But yeah, that was a very, very fun one.
"I really want to direct. People always say 'write what you know', but I've had a very unrelatable life."
With Chris gone, that must have been a really hard transition – but it was a trade-off in that you got to work with Alfonso Cuarón.
Yeah, it meant they got Alfonso Cuarón to come in and direct the third one. Now, by the standards of modern cinema, that decision just looks very smart and good. At the time, I think we can forget how absolutely left-field that choice seemed, as the guy who'd just done Y Tu Mamá También. But again, it’s one of the decisions that our producer David Heyman made that really shaped the next few years of the series and allowed us to go to a darker place.
Speaking of directors, you mentioned in your Desert Island Discs episode that you'd like to write and direct something one day. Has anything moved forward on that front?
Yeah, I do. I've got an idea for something that I have written and that I'm hopefully going to direct. It will be in at least a couple of years' time, because the next 18 months are pretty much accounted for already. But yeah, I really want to direct. People always say 'write what you know', but I've had a very unrelatable life. So I don't want to write that. But I have found a way of writing something that is connected to the film industry, and about that. So hopefully in a few years, it'll come out.
Is that something you'd want to star in, as well?
No, I don't want to act and direct. I would like to just direct, for two reasons – partly because I've never done it before, and I wouldn't want to be thinking about both those things at the same time. But, more practically, because when you direct a film, you have to watch that film 1000 times afterwards in the edit, and no part of me wants to watch my face that much. So yeah, I'll skip that.
Your music choices on your Desert Island Discs episode were fantastic. Who were the people that influenced your music tastes? Anyone from the Potter films?
It was a combination of my dad – whose musical taste runs the gamut from Marc Bolan, T Rex and David Bowie, to Sondheim and Rodgers & Hammerstein show tunes – my driver on Potter, a chap called Peter Harvey – who, over the course of the first few films, introduced me to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, The Who; a lot of the great 60s and 70s bands – and then my dresser on Potter, who was an old punk called Will, and got me into The Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks, The Clash, The Damned. The first modern music that I got into was 'Is This It?' by The Strokes. I remember that the hairdresser on the third Harry Potter movie, Tracy, gave me a copy of that album for the first time, and I was like, "What is this?" Because before that I'd really just been listening to old punk music, and being like "All modern music's rubbish!" But then I was like, "Oh no, okay, hold on, this band's great." So yeah, that was really the start of my journey into liking indie music.
"I think one of the best things you can do is get a reputation for being weird, or liking weird things. Because weird sort of begets weird."
Your next project is a musical one, the Weird Al Yankovic biopic. We recently saw a first-look image of you in the wig, and I love the amount of crazy Daniel Radcliffe images that exist because of your films – like you with all the dogs for Trainwreck, or with the bear slippers and the guns attached to your hands for Guns Akimbo. Does the potential for those sort of things affect the choices you make?
The reason I can tell you that we absolutely don't plan those is because the most famous versions of those images are paparazzi shots. They're not stills we took, at all. I think one of the best things you can do is get a reputation for being weird, or liking weird things. Because weird sort of begets weird, and as soon as you do something like Horns, the guys who make Swiss Army Man are like, "Oh, okay, maybe he's into that." And then people see Swiss Army Man, and they're like, "Oh, Guns Akimbo." One thing leads to another and it keeps meaning I get to do random crazy stuff, which I'm always very happy with. But yeah, the Al Yankovic movie is one of the most...I will be genuinely heartbroken if it's not as good as I want it to be. It's one of the most fun things I've ever shot. It was unbelievably fast. It was shot so quickly that it kind of makes me go, "What are we doing on other films?" That was a testament to being prepared, and our amazing director Eric Appel, and yeah, I can't wait for people to see it. It'll be a while. But I can't wait.
Have you had a chance to see Everything Everywhere All At Once, the new film from the Swiss Army Man directors, the Daniels?
I'm so excited. It's the best. At one point they were trying to get me in for it, and I was doing a play, so I could not be there, which I'm still gutted about. They are probably the only people in the world that I would say yes to doing a movie of theirs without even seeing the script. If they want me in something, I know that it will be for a reason and that if they're making something, it's because they have found something amazing to make. So yeah, I would follow those guys to the ends of the earth, really.
The Lost City is in UK cinemas from 13 April 2022. Click here to listen to our interview with Daniel Radcliffe on the Empire Podcast in full.