Daniel Radcliffe was 11 years old when he became the official face of the beloved character Harry Potter, and growing up with that extreme level of fame brought with it struggles for the young star.
In a new interview with Off Camera, Radcliffe, now 29, opens up about those struggles, including his use of alcohol as a teenager to deal with the pressure of the constant spotlight.
“There is an awareness that I really struggled with,” he said, “particularly in my late teens when I was going out to places for the first time where you would feel, again, it could have largely been in my head, but you would feel watched when you went into a bar, when you went into a pub. In my case, the quickest way to forget you were being watched was to get very drunk. Then as you get very drunk, you become aware,
“Oh, people are watching more now because now I’m getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more.’ It can affect your psyche.”
This isn’t the first time that Daniel Radcliffe has talked about how he struggled with drinking during his teen years of playing Harry Potter. He divulged to media in 2012 that he would sometimes arrive at set still drunk from a session the night before.
“I can honestly say I never drank at work on Harry Potter. I went into work still drunk, but I never drank at work,” he said at the time. “I can point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes.”
Radcliffe stopped drinking altogether in 2010.
In the recent interview, he called for empathy in the way we understand stars like Justin Bieber, who similarly grew up in the lime light and is currently dealing with his own mental health issues.
“There’s no blueprint for starting young.” Radcliffe said. “That’s like when people have a go at Justin Bieber and drag racing cars. I’m like, yeah, but ya know, I don’t know — stuff could be super crazy for him right now.”
As for the alcohol use, Daniel Radcliffe credited the support of the people closest to him for helping him through that time, but said that “ultimately, it was my own decision.”
“Like I woke up one morning after a night going like, ‘This is probably not good.’”
The interview is an interesting look into the experience of child stars, and the pressures that come along with that.
“Part of the thing is the expectation that you should just be delighted all the time.” he said, citing feeling as if “you don’t have a right to ever feel sad.”
But in spite of those struggles, Radcliffe is clear that he does not regret his experience.
“Even at the lowest point, I still loved my job so much,” he said. “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.’” he said. “That just didn’t happen.”
You can watch the full interview with Off Camera below.
