Whether by accident or design, Daniel Radcliffe’s post-Harry Potter career has been largely defined by a string of unexpected roles you’d never expect to see tackled by the star of one of cinema’s biggest-ever franchises. As chance would have it, headlining offbeat biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story fits that bill perfectly, and the star is winning widespread plaudits for his turn.
It’s the latest in a long line of idiosyncratic turns from the longtime Hogwarts resident, and while it’s easy to be typecast, Radcliffe admitted to IndieWire that he’s fully aware a huge number of his fans will check out his latest project on the promise that he’s going to be doing something strange.
“There’s something great about being able to draw attention to a story, and if some people go and see a weird movie because you are in it that they might not have seen if you were not, then that’s awesome. But when I do indie movies, I’m not thinking: ‘I am doing you a huge favor. I will uplift.’ I am getting easily as much out of it as they are, to my mind.”
After all, this is the charming British thespian who went from multi-billion dollar leading man to a farting corpse, an undercover fed infiltrating a Nazi skinhead group, a drug-running cartel pilot, a cursed lover who gets turned into a demon, an Israeli graduate lost in the jungle, and a South African political prisoner, so a musician with a fondness for the accordion is quaint by comparison.
Fortunately, Weird Al and Radcliffe proved to be in perfect sync, with the pair hitting it off away from the cameras as they collaborated on the former’s life story.
“He was awesome. He is what everyone says he is, which is delightful. He’s incredibly sort of just sweet and kind and unassuming. Not the loudest guy in the room by any stretch of the imagination. And you got the impression that he was having a really nice time on the set and just really enjoying being there, which I think made us all feel good. The film is a real celebration of him, and so for him to be seeming to enjoy that on set was very reassuring.”
Radcliffe’s recent trajectory has been fascinating to say the least, and all signs point to another success story when Weird: The Al Yankovic story arrives tomorrow.
