Daniel Radcliffe has revealed he sent a heartwarming letter to 11-year-old Dominic McLaughlin, the titular star of the new Harry Potter TV series.
While the days of Daniel, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint’s time as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley have come to an end, a new generation of HBO TV childstars – Dominic, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout – are stepping in their shoes.
When quizzed about the new stars, 36-year-old Daniel – who played the boy who lived for a decade – said he simply wants to give Dominic a hug, and hopes he will enjoy it ‘even more’ than he did; a sentiment the Escape from Pretoria actor laid out in a letter to the young actor.
Seeing these youngsters also made Daniel sympathise with his younger self, when he first donned his Hogwarts robe in 2001 to become the wizard protagonist and world famous thereafter.
‘I know a few people who are working on the productions so I wrote to Dominic and I sent him a letter. He sent me a very sweet note back,’ Daniel revealed while talking to Good Morning America on Tuesday.
‘I do not want to be a spectre in the lives of these children at all,’ Daniel joked with his trademark chirpiness, explaining: ‘I just wanted to write to him and say, “I hope you have the best time. An even better time than I did. I had a great time but I hope you have an even better one.”
‘I do,’ he stressed. ‘I see pictures of him and the other kids and I just want to hug them. They just seem so young. I do look at them and go, “Oh it’s crazy that I was doing that at that age.”
‘But it’s also incredibly sweet and I hope they’re having a great time.’
It’s no secret child stars have struggled over the years to grapple with becoming world famous before they even know themselves – with the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes and Macaulay Culkin all sharing their experiences.
The Swiss Army Man star faced his own challenges, having talked candidly about sobriety following a tricky time while shooting the Deathly Hallows films for which he admitted to turning up on set still drunk from the night before.
In 2020 Daniel said he drank through ‘panic’ over what to do next as the franchise drew to a close and ‘not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober’.
‘In my case, the quickest way to forget about the fact that you’re being watched is to get very drunk,’ he told Off Camera in 2019.
‘And then as you get very drunk, you become aware that “Oh, people are watching more now because now I’m getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more.”‘
‘Even at the lowest point, I still loved my job so much,’ the actor added. ‘I loved going to set, and there was never a day where my own [feelings] would affect how I was on set, there was never a point where I was like, “Oh, I wish this hadn’t happened to me, I wish I wasn’t Harry Potter.”‘
While Daniel remains in many ways the most recognisable face of the franchise, his relationship with it has become somewhat fraught over the years.
Since starring as Harry, Daniel has gone on to become a LGBTQ+ rights advocate, throwing particular support to the transgender community over the years.
Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, who has long voiced anti-trans rights views, announced that she would not forgive Daniel after he publicly spoke up in defence of the trans community in a 2020 essay.
Daniel went on to say Rowling made him ‘really sad’. He added that although his life was changed by her books, ‘that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.’
Other faces cast in the new HBO series include John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Warwick Davies reprising his role as Professor Flitwick, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Johnny Flynn as Lucius Malfoy, Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley, and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.
Production is currently underway and the first installment is expected to be released in 2027.
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