Daniel Radcliffe: Dirty Harry

In an exclusive interview, The Daily Beast’s Kevin Sessums talks to Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe about being adored by gay men, growing up on screen, and his rivalry with Twilight’s Robert Pattinson.

Xtra Insight: View exclusive photos of a day in the life of Daniel Radcliffe

Xtra Insight: Read Kevin Sessums on Daniel Radcliffe’s dark side

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes to theaters tonight, and if the trailer (below) is any indication, it will be Radcliffe’s darkest and most violent turn as young Harry yet. The Daily Beast’s Kevin Sessums caught up with Radcliffe earlier this year for afternoon tea at the Algonquin Hotel in New York when the actor was ending his Broadway run in Equus.

There is a whole genre of literature that centers on the orphaned. Your first role at nine was David Copperfield. There’s Oliver Twist. Jane Eyre. Faulkner’s Light in August. Almost every superhero. What’s your theory as to why the genre is so enduring since Harry is perhaps the most famous orphan in all of literature?

I suppose it’s because we love the underdog. I saw James Carville talking on television and he said a fantastic thing. It was during the last days of John McCain’s campaign. I got hooked on political coverage during the campaign. I love that Joe Scarborough chap. Do you watch Morning Joe? I quite like him. What is it he says? “American by luck. Southern by the grace of God.” That’s great phrase-making.

But back to Carville and orphans. He said that McCain should come out as the underdog. He said Americans love an underdog, but they hate a loser. And for an orphan, from the earliest, most basic, most primitive part of your life, things have gone against you. Everything we know about how people work and are successful, in the conventional sense, starts with family. So the notion is for that to be taken out of the picture one has to work doubly hard to achieve things. It is odd that almost every role I’ve played has been a kid who comes from a screwed-up family background because I have had such the opposite of that.

Click to View Our Gallery of the Harry Potter Cast Through the Years

You did attain worldwide fame at a very early age. Fame itself has become a presence in your life. I’m sure you have a love/hate relationship with it. In that sense, did fame become your sibling?

It’s not so much the fame thing as it is the person you are when you are in front of an audience or, well, being interviewed.

So you have become your own sibling?

I guess in a way, yeah because you develop two personas. It’s not even a conscious thing. Something happens. Like when I did Inside the Actor’s Studio. Adrenalin hits you and your mind starts working very, very fast. People always say to me, “Oh, you’re so funny in interviews.” And I go, Well, I’m not really in real life particularly. That’s what fame does to you. You acquire another self.