Daniel Radcliffe: Five things you didn’t want to know

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Daniel Radcliffe has been making the media rounds heavily this week in preparation for the release of the first film in his bold new post-’Harry Potter’ world. By most accounts, ‘The Woman in Black’ is a well-made throwback of a ghost story. Not filled with awful bloody images, but certainly not suitable for the wee ones used to cheering on the students of Hogwarts.

Maybe it’s because he’s looking to move into more adult fare, or maybe because he’s freed up from having to support the massive synergystic hydra of the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, but the 22-year-old actor has been strangely revealing in his most recent interviews. And not in a way that anyone who remembers the fresh-faced kid of ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ would want to see.

Among the startling things that Radcliffe has revealed over the past few days:

1. He used to get blackout drunk. In an interview with Shortlist magazine, the kind of publication in which you wouldn’t expect Vanity Fair-style confessions, Radcliffe discussed his heavy drinking in the later years of the ‘Potter’ franchise in detail, explaining, ‘Seriously, in the last three years of drinking I blacked out nearly every time. Blacking out was my thing.’

2. He doesn’t do a lot of manscaping. Radcliffe is no stranger to appearing in the buff for a role; he appeared naked on stage for the play ‘Equus’ a few years ago. But in discussing the nude scenes for his upcoming film ‘Kill Your Darlings,’ in which he plays beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the actor told Britain’s Heat magazine that he planned to keep things completely natural. When the film’s director, John Krokidas, informed Radcliffe that he couldn’t do much trimming, since it would be anachronistic to the 1940s era in which the film is set, Radcliffe replied, ‘I’m pretty much there anyway, mate! Not a huge amount of maintenance going on.’ However, he hasn’t totally Burt Reynolds-ed out. He adds, ‘I mean, there’s a little bit, obviously, for courtesy.’

Ladies, this sort-of Harry Potter is thinking only of you.

3. Not only is he a smoker, he’s a tobacco snob. Radcliffe told British Esquire that he has his rolling tobacco shipped all the way from England: ‘I have to ship this in from home because you can’t get good rolling tobacco here. It’s all dry and crappy like you’ve emptied out a cigarette.’

4. He’s not close friends with Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) in real life. Yes, they’re actors and real life isn’t the same as the movies, but come on! After growing up together, doesn’t every fan want to believe those kids would always be close? While Radcliffe told the Mirror that he regularly texts Emma Watson, who played Hermione, he and Grint aren’t nearly as close. ‘Rupert and I never text each other, we never see each other. ... If I see him every six months or so, it’s a friendly ‘Hello, how’s things with you,’ but that’s about it.’

5. He thinks you can keep your stinking Oscars. The actor wasn’t surprised that ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2’ didn’t get a best picture Oscar nomination. And he doesn’t much care. He told Moviefone, ‘I have a kind of mixed feeling about awards for actors in general. It’s a lovely thing to be recognized by either the public or your peers. That’s a very gratifying thing. We like patting ourselves on the back in this industry and telling ourselves how well we’ve done and how amazing we are. It’s all very self-congratulatory.’

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-- Patrick Kevin Day