Daniel Radcliffe’s Reddit AMA Featured Alan Rickman, Farting Machines And Elijah Wood

Daniel Radcliffe may be working hard to shed his Harry Potter image — his latest film Horns is a supernatural thriller based off Joe Hill’s famous novel about a man who starts sprouting a pair of, what else, horns after being accused of murdering his girlfriend is about as far away from Hogwarts as you can get. But even with his hard-earned leading man status and acclaimed performances, the boy wizard doesn’t mind reminiscing about his time playing The Boy Who Lived. Case in point, this latest Reddit AMA.

The star took to the community forum today and of course, most of the questions centered around those early magical days in his career and Radcliffe shared some of this fonder memories from filming. Here are the best parts of the actor’s AMA:

Professor Prankster

So this story may not be new news but it’s still pretty awesome. When a Reddit user asked what the best prank pulled on set was, Radcliffe pulled out from the Pensieve this gem involving Professor Snape himself, Alan Rickman. Two words: farting machine.

God… I should probably about the one that was pulled on ME, rather than any I pulled. Because it came from a very unexpected place.

There’s – in the 3rd film – there’s a shot in the great hall of all the kids sleeping in the great hall, and the camera starts very very wide, and comes in so that it’s an inch from my face, a very long developing set, yeah, and Alan Rickman decided he would plant one of those fart machines in my, uh, sleeping bag, and they waited until like the camera had come in for this huge DRAMATIC developing shot, and then unleashed this tremendous noise in the great hall.

I immediately thought: “This is one of the other kids fucking around, and we were going to get in trouble.”

But as it turns out, it was one of the members of Britain’s acting royalty.

I think I laughed a lot, was probably a bit embarrassed, but it was really really funny.

Here’s a clip of the prank in case you’d like to relive the memory.

His Evil Twin, Elijah Wood 

Everyone and their mother knows Radcliffe from his Gryffindor days, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to the occasional case of mistaken celebrity identity. The guys he get’s confused with most though isn’t one he minds being compared to.

I have signed a picture of Elijah Wood – and I think we’ve also both said in interviews that we would like each other to play each other in films of our lives – but I was on a red carpet in Japan, and this Japanese man gave me a picture of Elijah, and I knew i wasn’t going to get past the language barrier to explain, so I wrote “I am not Elijah Wood, signed Daniel Radcliffe.”

Rupert Grint’s Hoarding Problem 

A long time ago, Rupert Grint admitted to owning an ice cream van. Weird, but also strangely cool and completely believable. Radcliffe confirmed ownership of said vehicle and also revealed his cast mate’s affinity for collecting some strange items.

Um, and, er, he also owned at one point, at one point he owned llamas and a hovercraft, you heard correctly, hahaha, and a 1950’s chevy pickup, he had a collection of weird and wonderful things at his house.

All About That Bass 

Radcliffe has had the privilege of working with some very talented actors during his Harry Potter days. The cream of the British crop was pulled for the film franchise, among them, Gary Oldman who played Sirius Black. Obviously working with Oldman was pretty special, but having the Oscar nominee teach your 14 year-old puberty-stricken self how to play guitar, that’s priceless.

One of the moments in my life that will forever be… you know, immortal in my memory, would be – because Gary Oldman is a bass player, a very good bass player, yeah, and, um, I started learning bass on the 3rd film when he joined the cast. And so one day, I think actually maybe on my 14th birthday, that day started with Gary teaching me the bass line to “Come Together” by the Beatles.

Another Dumbledore Secret 

Okay, so finding out Professor Dumbledore was gay definitely shocked some fans, but the real Dumbledore, Michael Gambon, has a secret of his own. He’s obsessed with guns. Like, really obsessed.

Michael Gambon was always also hilarious to be around. Something not every knows about Michael is that he collects and restores antique dueling pistols. Yeah! And they’re really his passion, much more than acting is, and, uh, I remember he one morning gave me a demonstration of how you would shoot a man in a duel with a 17th century pistol in one hand and his morning coffee in the other!

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