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LONDON — When you're 17, discretion is seldom the better part of valour. When you're the golden ideal of 17 - that is, rich, famous, lusted-after, unpimpled - what would possibly persuade you to hold your tongue? Daniel Radcliffe, on this morning, has chosen valour over discretion, and he may live to regret it, even if his fictional alter ego doesn't. Radcliffe has just been asked how he'd like to see this alter ego - you may have heard of him, Harry Clutter or something - finish out his fictional life.
The young actor is clearly chewing over the question in his mind as Emma Watson, his co-star in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opens Wednesday, talks about the final days of her character, Hermione Granger. (She doesn't want Hermione to die in the series' seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but rather, in a sweetly feminist take, "to do something really interesting with her life.") She likes stories that "wrap up at the end," and she struggles for a minute to find one word that sums up that thought.
Young Mr. Radcliffe has a bit more brimstone in his soul. He leans closer to his microphone, the better for the world's media to hear: "A couple of years ago I said that I would like Harry to die, because that is a conclusive ending."
"That's the word I was looking for," Watson says. "Conclusive, thank you."
Actors Rupert Grint, left, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe pose during a promotional event for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in London. (Stephen Hird/Reuters)
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"But I'm going to steer away from that now," Radcliffe resumes, "because the next day the headlines said 'Radcliffe Wants Harry Dead."' He says this with a cheeky grin, and gets the laugh he wants. He knows how to work a room - if not when to stop while ahead.
"But it would be fitting, when you consider the prophecy that was made about him and Voldemort - one of them's got to go. I think he might." Then, perhaps imagining these words in big, black type, Radcliffe gets on his bike and pedals backward. "But that's based on absolutely nothing!"
Sure enough, over the next week, various websites feature the headline, "Radcliffe Wants Potter Dead." It's as if he could see into the future. Like a wizard, almost. Or just an unnaturally canny 17-year-old.
As fans of the films and novels will know, Harry's in the middle of an increasingly dark journey. At the end is his destiny, tied to Lord Voldemort's, but along the way the journey will be interrupted by pockets of hormonal turbulence, adolescent defiance, rifts with friends and his first kiss. Pretty much the normal teenage experience, if you take away the showdown-to-the-death with the most malignant force in the universe (but then, isn't that how teenagers view their parents?). "I just feel so angry all the time," says Harry to his godfather, Sirius Black.
To add to his fury, Harry thinks he's an army of one. At the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, he feels abandoned by his friends, Ron and Hermione, and exiled from the affections of his mentor, Professor Dumbledore. No one believes that he has witnessed the return of Voldemort; the magicians' rag brands him "Harry Plotter." Cast out, misunderstood, alone - is there a teenager, supernaturally endowed or not, who won't nod his head in sympathy?
That is precisely what director David Yates was aiming for: the human element in a universe of centaurs and giants, patronus curses and dark-wizard catchers. "This film's about that difficult time between 14 and 17 when you're rebelling a bit and struggling with yourself and the world - it's a dramatic point in childhood," says Yates in his soft, north-England accent. "It's about that intensity, in a magical world."
Fans of Yates's award-winning work in British television - taut, sometimes grim fare such as Sex Traffic and State of Play - might be surprised that he agreed to take on the Potter challenge, considering that he seems more comfortable in the world of the furrowed brow than the flying broom. His only other feature film was 1998's The Tichborne Claimant, a period drama which cost $4-million (or approximately the budget for doughnuts on a Potter film).
After an initial period of cold feet, he took to the Potter universe, he says, like a "duck to water." His television work might be on a human scale, but he grew up wanting to be Steven Spielberg.
Yates says he adored the film's visual challenges, from the look of the sort-of-equine, sort-of-cadaver Thestrels to the brilliantly lit Room of Requirements, where Harry trains his rebel army at Hogwarts (this particular set, which required under-floor lighting, was described by Radcliffe as "one degree hotter than the sun").
In eight weeks' time, Yates will begin filming the sixth in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, which he describes as the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" instalment. The drug is Liquid Luck, a feel-good potion that sounds like a supernatural version of ecstasy. In the next movie, Yates - who is invariably described as an actor's director - will be reunited with a cast that seems to include every serious actor in Britain, from Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon to Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson. If they all decided to declaim at once, they could probably bring down Hogwarts.
It seems that the director thinks Radcliffe may one day hold a place in the pantheon - especially if he keeps perfecting his craft through hard work. Yates is known for driving his actors, politely and quietly, until they've given their best. Radcliffe's kissing scene with Katie Leung, who plays Cho Chang, reportedly took more than 30 takes. The director prepared his young stars by first asking them to share stories of their first kisses - he shared, too, like a good leader - and then clearing the set for the actual shot.
"What's lovely about Dan," says Yates, "is that after the 14th or 15th take I'd say, for whatever reason, 'We have to go again, Dan.' And after four or five weeks he'd turn to me and say, 'I think I need to go again.'"
Downstairs at Claridge's, the hotel where the stars have gathered for their press conference, Radcliffe remembers it from a slightly different perspective - more from the worker-bee's angle: "David would come up to me after a take and say, 'That one was good, but it wasn't real.' There were times when I thought 'I can't!' " he said, theatrically tearing at his hair. "But in the end I could."
Radcliffe is, perhaps thanks to seven years in the limelight and the adulation of a million girls who would do anything for him, seriously charismatic: handsome, eager, self-effacing, good with a one-liner. Watson is dressed in a revealing black gown that causes a middle-aged journalist to gasp, rather creepily, "Did you get a look at that dress?" It's easy to forget she's just 17, what with that dress, but then there's her hyper-articulate speech and the endearing geekiness. Asked what she's bought with her star's salary, she responds that her Apple computer is her "pride and joy."
The third of the trio, Rupert Grint (who plays Ron Weasley), is the one who seems most authentically a teen, with his fall of red hair, his collapsing posture and his Sex Pistols T-shirt. He reveals that he's recently bought a working ice-cream van - toppings and all - and hopes to continue acting, "but if that doesn't work out, you know - ice-cream van."
Radcliffe clearly rules the room and handles most of the questions: Did Harry influence his own character over the years? (Not so much.) What will he do after these films? (More acting, and write poetry.) Does he take fictional characters, such as the tormented Alan Strang in the play Equus, home with him at night? ("It's very important to leave Alan Strang in the theatre.")
As Strang in Equus, which ran on London's West End this spring, Radcliffe famously appeared naked on stage in front of nearly 1,000 people a night. Now, that's bravery. After that, what's a little death-wish toward a boy wizard?
