His co-star's late-night habits on the “Harry Potter” set fueled his battle with alcohol.
Daniel Radcliffe’s life was permanently altered the minute he set foot on the “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” set. The young actor was thrust into the spotlight as the beloved Harry Potter in one of the most famous movie series ever.
Although Daniel became a worldwide sensation after playing “the boy who lived” in the “Harry Potter” franchise, his rise to fame wasn’t without its challenges. He may have dazzled viewers with his youthful grin while portraying history’s most well-known wizard, but he was battling alcoholism behind the scenes, as many young actors do.
Near the end of the “Harry Potter” series, when he was reportedly unsure of his future as a professional actor, Radcliffe revealed that his drinking got worse. He even named a co-star who, according to him, has a significant influence on this bad habit of his.
During a 2012 interview with The Mirror, he named the late Richard Harris, who portrayed Professor Albus Dumbledore in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” saying, “Harry Potter put me around people like the actor Richard Harris, and I heard all their amazing stories about their drunken nights. That was what I was desperately trying to pursue.”
Despite his insistence that he never drank on the set, Radcliffe did acknowledge that he occasionally showed up for filming intoxicated. In an interview with Heat Magazine, as quoted by Reuters in 2012, the actor explained that he would go “into work still drunk, but I never drank at work. I can point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes.”
The good thing was that as time passed, his relationship with alcohol changed, something that the English actor discussed in an Off Camera With Sam Jones interview from 2019, in which he was more candid about his journey to sobriety.
He remarked, “Ultimately, it was just my own decision. I woke up one morning after a night, going, ‘This is probably not good.’” Furthermore, Radcliffe emphasized that he doesn’t miss drinking anymore.
“When I think of the sort of chaos I used to invite into my life, I’m really much happier now,” he concluded. “I think there was some part of me that was like, ‘Actors have to be crazy cool drunks. I have to live up to this weird image that I had in my head of what it means to be a famous actor.’”