Daniel Radcliffe recently sat down with The Telegraph's Seven magazine to discuss his acting career, from Harry Potter to this December's release of his new Sky miniseries, A Young Doctor's Notebook, and growing up in the spotlight before millions of fans, critics, and admirers. Highlights of the interview can be read below; a few photos from his shoot for the publication can be found here.

Dan's thoughts on the privilege of celebrity:
Daniel Radcliffe: “They let me do it here so that I don’t have to stand outside,” he says. “There will be photographers, not for me, but just because they hang around smart hotels like this. It’s pretty much the only thing I exploit my position for, to be allowed to smoke inside.”

“I try not to let that stuff happen, but yes, it could be happening without me knowing. I don’t have an entourage in my personal life. I get driven here and I get driven home, but that’s it. I hate that kind of dropping a name to get a table stuff. Maybe it’s an English thing that there’s just some sort of embarrassment saying: ‘Hello, I’m Daniel Radcliffe, does that make a difference to you?’”

On what Dan's past alcohol problem from a few years ago revealed to him:
Dan: “It wasn’t that I became a nasty person at all, it was just that I felt that I was running away from thinking about things. It was a way of ignoring all my own fears about ‘Will I be able to keep going in this business after the Harry Potter series ends?’ You know, it was a way of, I think, coping with that. And it was a very bad way of coping with that.”

On the British papers calling The Woman in Black the most complained-about film this year:
Dan: “I do take a small tincture of pride about it being the most complained-about film. I would have thought from the trailer that you could sense what kind of a movie it was going to be. I said at the time, if your kid is under 12, I would advise them not to see this film. Apparently there was a girl at the British premier who fainted and when I heard that, I was, like, ‘we did something right’.”

"There was a part of me in some scenes that was slightly scared of my own face, because I know that my face is…” He trails off. “I’m scared of any sort of expression looking like a Harry expression, and so I think that the journey for me in the last year is kind of about acceptance, of going, ‘This is my face and it was also the face that played Harry’. I have to stop fighting that aspect, and not worry about being expressive at times. As far as I can tell, most actors’ main motivation is self-doubt and neuroses.”

On if he felt the pressure of carrying the Harry Potter series when cast at 11 years old:
Dan: “Not at that age. I didn’t start to feel that pressure until much later. I think probably, that’s one of the best things about Chris Columbus [the director], he made the process so enjoyable we never thought of it as anything but fun, and it really wasn’t until the third film that I started going ‘OK, now I want to really dedicate myself to this and start learning about acting and getting better’.’’

On the change of broadcast dates for A Young Doctor's Notebook:
Dan: “I think they were going to release it in the spring of next year,” says Radcliffe, who adds that he’s “immensely flattered” that he might one day turn into Hamm. “And then they were, like, ‘Let’s release it at Christmas, because there’s lots of snow in it’. It’s not remotely festive, but it’s snowing all the time.”

During filming he says he learnt quite a lot about how to amputate limbs. “And I do think I could probably perform a tracheotomy now."

On the transition of being recognised by fans today:
Dan: “Hey, there’s Harry Potter!” or do they say “There’s Daniel Radcliffe”? “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get Harry Potter at all. Of course I do. But you know what? I’d say the split is now rather encouragingly in favour of Daniel Radcliffe, which is rather lovely. I walked past two girls on a bench the other day, and I heard them both go ‘Oh my God, it’s Daniel Radcliffe’, and every time that happens I think: ‘Yesss!’ Not because they recognise me, because they use my name.”

Expecto-Penguin

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