SAN DIEGO – After years of false starts, Daniel Radcliffe finally made it to Comic-Con. The “Harry Potter” star was never able to physically make it to the massive pop culture festival while shooting the iconic film series because their production always conflicted with the convention's July dates. The 25-year-old actor doesn't necessarily have more free time on his hand these days, but he made his inaugural visit to talk about his upcoming fantasy thriller “Horns.”
Radcliffe took some time to speak to HitFix about his new movie, his first Comic-Con and a “never say never” in the video interview at the top of this post. What was most surprising was Radcliffe's initial revelation that he'd already explored the convention but in costume.
“I went around as Spider-Man and took some photos with people,” Radcliffe admits. “It was quite fun. It was like that and Halloween are the only time I can walk around in a mask and relate to people in a normal way.”
And, to clarify, these people just thought it was a random guy dressed up as Spidey. They had no idea they took a photo with one of the most famous actors in the world.
As for “Horns,” the movie finds Radcliffe playing Ig, a twentysomething man who is searching for the killer of his girlfriend (Juno Temple) who died a year earlier. Ig wakes up one morning to find horns growing from his head. And they keep growing. The larger they get the more complete strangers want to tell him their darkest secrets, to both comical and horrifying effect. Radcliffe describes the movie as “magical realism.” He says the movie appealed to him because he's “always looking for original ideas. It takes a feeling of being an outsider and being veiled and finding a really fascinating way to deal with that.”
Director Alexandra Aja never really explains how Ig got his horns, and that was another aspect of the material that really appealed to Radcliffe.
“It's unexplainable. That's one of the causes of his frustrations,” Radcliffe says of Ig's transformation. “Even at the end it's not totally cleared up. And I don't think it should be. In 'Master and Margarita,' which is one of my favorite books, one of the central premises of it is that the devil holds a party every thousand years and invites someone called Margarita to be the guest of honor. That's never explained…but you just don't care. The rest of the story around it is so compelling and fun and exciting. I'm hoping that's what people sort of feel about this.”
Because he's so identified as playing J.K. Rowling's most famous creation, Radcliffe will probably always have the threat or temptation of playing him again right around the corner. A great comparison would be the original cast of “Star Wars.” Especially following the prequels, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill never thought they would play their big screen breakthrough roles again. Flash forward 30 years after “Return of the Jedi” and they are all in London as part of a new trilogy.
Could Radcliffe ever see himself playing Potter once more? Even in his 60s?
Find out in the video at the top of this post.
“Horns” arrives in theaters on Oct. 31.