Daniel Radcliffe on Going Rogue in 'Now You See Me,' Method Farting, and Some Awful Fan Encounters

Daniel Radcliffe in January 2016 (Associated Press)

If anything has become clear in the five years since Daniel Radcliffe hung up the Hogwarts robe, it’s that the 26-year-old British actor loves mixing it up (also rapping, but more on that later). Nearly every role he has taken this decade has marked a departure from the iconic role of Harry Potter that made him famous; he’s essentially creating his own blueprint for how to escape that owl hole, well aware that it’s always going to be brought up (see: the first sentence of this story).

For his latest act, Radcliffe plays his first traditional movie villain, an honor he jokingly calls a “rite of passage” for any British performer. In Now You See Me 2, the razzle-dazzle sequel to the 2013 sleeper hit, Radcliffe plays Walter Mabry, a sketchy tech genius who lures The Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Lizzie Caplan, stepping in for Isla Fisher) to Asia and forces them to work their magic in another high-stakes heist.

He’ll also be seen this summer in Swiss Army Man, which made some noise at this year’s Sundance (pun intended), where it earned the apt sobriquet “The Farting Corpse Movie” (Radcliffe is said corpse). The ever-candid Radcliffe talked to Yahoo Movies about becoming the big bad in Now You See Me, how weird fan encounters have actually increased over the years, and more. And even he can’t help bringing up Potter (see first answer below).

Now You See Me 2 feels different from anything you’ve done.
They’re fun movies. I enjoyed the script and I was like, “Yeah, I have not done a film like this.” Including Potter; Potter was huge, but it was huge in a different way. This is huge and slick and cool. And also with Jon Chu’s background, you knew that it was going to be visually just really energetic. So it was something different, definitely.

I feel like you’ve made an art form of jumping out of whatever box we wanted to put you in over the years since Potter, from going nude onstage in Equus, to growing horns in Horns, to playing a corpse in Swiss Army Man. And now this is your first villain. Was that the big draw?
Totally. There was the villain thing, there was also the fact that for a long time I’ve wanted to do a supporting role in a big ensemble thing. And I love the cast of this movie so much that I was like, “That would be amazing to be a part of that group.” Those were the boxes [that I wanted to check]. I had never done those things. And playing the bad guy, I feel that, as a Brit, is a rite of passage. Doing my first British bad guy was great.

Related: ‘Now You See Me 2’ Review: Sequel Conjures Up the Magic of the Original

Was it more fun?
You have less responsibility to the main through-line. Like normally I’m playing roles where I have to be the emotional center of the film, and I’m sort of the audience’s avatar. And I’m just not in this at all. So you have no responsibility over those things, which is great… I can just try and be petulant and weird.

When you hear “British bad guy,” it’s hard not think about send-ups of Bond villains, the mustache-twirlers and whatnot. How do you make sure he’s not cartoonish? Especially considering he actually has a mustache.
Right. There were a couple moments originally in the script where I was like, “I think we’re laboring his Englishness a bit too much now.” My thing with him was like, “OK, he’s crazy and he’s malicious and he’s got all these sort of slightly sly intentions, where is that coming from? How do we play that, how do we make it seem real?” So ultimately I came to the conclusion that if Walter is somebody taking himself out of society and faking his own death, the likelihood is that he would be incredibly f–king bored. Incredibly bored, and probably really lonely, and just wants friends.

My backstory on it was [that] he was not the cool kid at school. He was the f–king dork everyone probably s–t on him all the time, and he desperately wanted to be one of the cool kids. He’s the kid at school who would pay people to come to his birthday party. And that’s essentially what he’s doing with The Four Horsemen. He has this lust for power and control and obviously this thing that he wants them to get will increase that. But more than that, I think he just wants them to like him, and wants to be impressive to them, but also wants to be their boss. He’s just a very confused, insecure guy.

Were you influenced by any classic villains? Or any real-life villains?
Not villains, just like a bunch of posh private school boys that I knew at school. They were sort of petulant and angry and had daddy issues. I’m drawing on a couple of them.

Who’s the best magician in the cast?
The person who’s amazing, genuinely, in our film at all that stuff, is Dave Franco. He can f–king cut s–t in half with playing cards.

And Woody has done some actual mentalism.
He definitely has. But I’ve seen him f–k up as much as I’ve seen him be right [laughs]. Whereas Dave is f–king on it.

Speaking of talents. I just recently talked to Dave and Jesse at CinemaCon in Las Vegas and asked them if they’d gotten to witness your rapping abilities firsthand. They didn’t even know you rapped. Why aren’t you sharing this talent with people?
Because it’s a weird thing to just break into on set [laughs]. That’s why I think I was so pleased when Jimmy Fallon gave me an opportunity to do that. I was like, “I’ll finally get to show people this weird skill I have.” But there’s a probably a surplus of white people rapping in the world, so we don’t need more.

Are we going see you rap again?
I’ve got the periodic table down, I’ve done that before on another show. I do just love any kind of intricate, weird lyrics. I don’t know, hopefully. Maybe there’s an Eminem biopic in the future that I could jam my way into.

We lost one of the greats this year when Alan Rickman passed away. How did your experience with him help shape you as an actor?
The thing you realized when you went to Alan’s memorial was just how nurturing he was of just any younger talented actor. He’d really look out for them and encourage them. At one point he cut short his holiday to come see me in a play, and then took me out for dinner afterwards and talked to me about the play. He was just incredibly good with advice, and listening.

He was very intimidating at first, when you first met him on set. I remember being really scared of him when I was younger. And then you suddenly realize when you’re like 13 or 14 that, “Oh no, he’s not scary, really. He’s just got a really deep and intimidating voice.” And he’s actually really funny and self-deprecating and vulnerable and all the stuff that you don’t expect. And just watching him on set, and his focus, it was amazing. I couldn’t have wished for a better villain to work opposite against for years. He was really just extraordinary.

Related: Remembering Alan Rickman: His Most Memorable Roles

What is your take on the fan argument that Snape is truly the hero of Harry Potter?
I think that’s absolutely very valid. That’s the one thing about the character, is that heroes can be dislikable. He doesn’t like Harry, he never did. But he is absolutely a real hero, and it’s the sort of bravery you don’t see very often because it’s bravery that doesn’t want any credit for being brave. So yeah, I would go along with that.

I know over the tenure of the Potter series you had all sorts of bizarre fan encounters. Have those waned over the years?
Oh, no. If anything they’ve gotten more and more. Just because I feel like the people that were kids and were the biggest fans of Potter growing up are now my also my age, so we’re all walking around now. They’re not home with their parents anymore. So I meet them a lot more.

Generally speaking, the fan encounters are great. It’s just very occasionally… There was this woman the other day. I was going into a restaurant and she said, “Hey! Daniel!” And I turned around and I was still about to go in, and she had her daughter with her and she ripped her hat off her daughter’s head, revealing her daughter’s head was bald. And she just went, “You can’t go in! Get back over here! She has alopecia!” And I was just like, “Of course, I will come over and meet your daughter.” But I was [thinking], “You are a disgusting parent for ripping your child’s hat off and shouting that on the street.”

That is not great parenting.
So sometimes you have moments like that, where being a famous person just brings out the worst in people. But you also have moments, like I’m regularly being told how important I was to someone’s childhood, which is like… When I think about the people who meant a lot to me in my childhood, like The Simpsons or whatever, the fact that I might occupy that space with someone else is mind-blowing and lovely still.

It seems like people feel so badly that they need to seize that moment seeing you that they lose all social etiquette.
Sometimes, I think that’s what it is, and I get that. But sometimes it doesn’t make it any less shocking. I saw a nanny once — admittedly it wasn’t her kid, but still it’s her job — see me and literally do that [motions to let go] with her stroller and that stroller started rolling into the road and my security guy had to grab it, and there was a f–king kid in it. Sometimes it gets the better of people.

You’ve also got Swiss Army Man coming out soon, which generated a lot of buzz at Sundance. I’ve got to ask you the question on everyone’s mind. Was any of that farting Method?
No. One of Paul Dano’s is in the film, though. Because our directors [Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] said to everybody, “If you have any farts, you can go over to our sound mixer and he will record them and we will put them in the film and you will get a credit.” And I think only two people contributed, and Paul was one of them. I remember we were just doing a scene, we were about to go for a take, and Paul just went, “Hold on.” He grabbed the boom and he just put it down and farted on it. And then Matt [Hannam], our editor, has one at another moment. Those were the only two real ones.

Related: Daniel Radcliffe’s 'Swiss Army Man’ Delivers Smart Art In Between Farts

Are those fart sounds being pumped in live or are they all added in post?
That was all in post. During filming we just had our director making fart noises off camera for me to react to. It was very low-tech.

Now You See Me 2 opens Friday. Watch the trailer: