LONDON -- Harry Potter has grown up. Although sometimes, he says, it's easier to remain a child forever. Just the other night, Potter himself -- actor Daniel Radcliffe -- was at one of the first London screenings of his new film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
" Click to enlarge image Earlier this year, Radcliffe bared all in "Equus," his London stage debut. The 17-year-old actor (who turns 18 on July 23) was happy, excited and thrilled because the audience was filled with a species he's very interested these days: Cute female Muggles. "There's a part in the new movie where there's a picture of me onscreen from the first Harry Potter film.
Harry is remembering his past and they show a clip from the old movie. All of a sudden all of the girls in the audience start sighing and going, 'Ohhhhhh, you were so cute.' "It was soul destroying," Radcliffe winces, clutching his heart in pain.
A few days later at the Claridges Hotel in London, he arrives in dark slacks, a dark shirt and that trademark short, spiked hair. He doesn't wear Harry's trademark little round specs, but he does have that warm, sweet smile known to moviegoers across the globe. Radcliffe starts with the news that just made headlines.
He is signed for the next and last two "Potter" films -- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Harry Potter and the Darkly Hallows." The last one is based on the final Potter book, due out on July 21. He says signing on to finish the series was a no-brainer.
"It is important to realize that it's a lot of work and commitment. It can't be rushed into lightly. But the media made more out of if we would sign or not than was true.
All of us wanted to come back to finish the series from the start," he says of his own motives, plus those of actor Rupert Grint, who plays his wizard friend Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson, who plays the brainy girl with powers named Hermione Granger. Radcliffe says the last three films will be especially daunting. In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth movie in the megapopular franchise, Harry and his friends are fighting for their lives against the life-sucking Death Eaters and the evil Lord Voldemort.
Their school, Hogwarts, has been taken away from their mentor Dumbledore, and they must confront Voldemort, whose plan for Harry becomes clear: One must die in order for the other to live. "It's dark, which means it's really important for me to leave the character and all of his problems on the set at the end of the day," Radcliffe says. "At the same time, it's hard to detach myself from Harry.
I do get attached." He says Harry really grows up in the new film. "He starts off as a reluctant leader in this fight against Voldemort," he says.
"By the end of the movie, he is Henry V. I even got notes to rein it in a little bit." There is a major action scene in a room filled with lights, mirrors and the devil himself.
"The only problem with filming those scenes is there was real fire and mirrors all around me. It was like working in an oven," Radcliffe says. He says audiences even will see a moody teenage Harry in this film.
"He lashes out at his two best friends. But a lot of teens do that because of the intimacy with the friends. You know it will be OK," Radcliffe says.
"Harry can also be selfish now. He feels like he needs to live up to this image of the great defender of all things magical." Radcliffe had a long talk with author J.
K. Rowling about the change in Harry's demeanor. "I talked to Jo about how a lot of people said they didn't like Harry's anger in book five," he says.
"Jo just said, 'He has a right to his anger.' " He's not LONDON -- Harry Potter has grown up.
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