Ben Foster on Getting Cast in ‘Orphans’, Looking Up to Daniel Radcliffe and Why His Mom is Worried About Him

Harry Potter was actually Ben Foster’s inspiration for doing a play on Broadway.  Well, technically it was Daniel Radcliffe who gave him the push to do Lyle Kessler’s Orphans.

“I talked with Dan Radcliffe when we were doing Kill Your Darlings, and he had done Equus and so many plays, and I have so much respect for him—he’s such a brave man—and he was like, ‘Oh, you should do a play!’  ‘Well, I’d really like to, but it scares the shit out of me,” Foster recounted in an interview with Vulture.  “You go do something that scares you and don’t try to beat it.”

The actor had an early connection to the play, but then joined the cast after the controversial firing of Shia LeBeouf.  “They called and asked me to participate in a reading of it months and months ago,” Foster recalled.  “I had a few days to look it over, and I went in and read with Alec [Baldwin] and Dan Sullivan, the director.  We just sat around a table, reading the book.  And then it went another direction.  And that was that, and it made me sad.  The bizarre part was months went by, and I was sitting with my mom in LA, and she said, you know, ‘It’s a really good thing that play didn’t work out—I think it would have been too hard on your heart.’  And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’  And the next day I got a phone call that said, ‘Will you come to New York tomorrow and start rehearsing?’  So I said yes.  But my mom’s worried.” Read more

Daniel Radcliffe on His New Play, Choosing His Projects and Pushing Boundaries

Daniel Radcliffe isn’t sure how much longer people are going to talk about Harry Potter—or insist that his career is hurt by the franchise’s popularity.

“I feel like everyone wanted Potter to be more of a handcuff than it actually was,” he said in an interview with Yahoo! News.  “I think Harry Potter is going to be around for a while—a long while—but as long as it doesn’t inhibit me getting parts in the present time, then it’s fine.  It’s a lovely association to have, because it’s something I’m incredibly proud of.

“People always say, ‘Don’t you just want to forget about it?’ No!  That was my entire adolescence.”

Next up, Radcliffe will star in a new play, The Cripple of Inishmaan, on the West End.  “I think one of the hilarious things about this play is, by our standards today, how politically incorrect it is,” he observed. Read more

Daniel Radcliffe: “I’ve always known I have potential to be a good actor, and I think more than a good actor, but…”

Despite starring in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time, the success doesn’t seem to have gone to Daniel Radcliffe’s head.  After playing Harry Potter, the British actor still insisted on auditioning for his role as Allen Ginsburg in the film Kill Your Darlings.  Radcliffe told director John Krokidas that he wanted to prove he was right for the part.

“I think he was nervous about whether I would want to audition or not, and so at my first meeting with him I said, ‘I want to read, I want to audition,’ because at this point in my career, I am aware that my name brings a certain kind of cachet,” Radcliffe said in an interview with Out Magazine.  “I want to know that a director wants me for me, rather than for the cachet.  I can see why people are skeptical about me playing Allen Ginsburg, because I don’t look like him—although, neither does James Franco [who also portrayed Ginsburg in 2010’s Howl]—and I’m English and middle class, and not from New Jersey, but that’s what I think is so exciting about it, because people have no idea.” Read more

Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe on their new BBC Series, ‘A Young Doctor’s Notebook’ (video)

Jon Hamm and  Daniel Radcliffe are starring in a new BBC series, A Young Doctor’s Notebook, based on the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov‘s novel of the same name.

In the video below, the two talk about how they both came to working on the show, their roles and how they share a common love for Bulgakov.

The mini-series airs December 6th in the UK. No word when it’ll premiere here in the states.  Read more

Daniel Radcliffe: “I’m very, very proud of Potter. But I now have to prove to people that I’m serious about acting, and I think the way to do that is to select interesting material”

After ten years of playing Harry Potter in nine films, Daniel Radcliffe is ready for new challenges.  After a successful run on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Radcliffe stars in his first post-Potter film, The Woman in Black, a movie from legendary UK studio Hammer Productions. 

Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kipps, a lawyer who is tasked with settling the affairs of a recently deceased woman… but he finds himself entangled in the supernatural affairs of what appears to be a ghost.

Radcliffe admits that though he’s grateful for his Harry Potter success, he is ready to show that as an actor he is capable of so much more — which is why he chose to star in The Woman in Black.  He explains, “I’m very, very proud of Potter.  But I now have to prove to people that I’m serious about acting, and I think the way to do that is to select interesting material. This fit that bill – it was a great script and a great story – unsettling and frightening.”  Read more

Biography: Daniel Radcliffe

DANIEL RADCLIFFE is best known in the eponymous role of Harry Potter in the most successful film series of all time. Radcliffe has starred in all eight of the films with the final feature Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II released in July 2011.

On January 1, 2012, Radcliffe finished a run as J. Pierrepoint Finch in Tony Award winner Rob Ashford’s production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, marking his Broadway musical debut. The show, which opened in March 2011, garnered great critical acclaim with Radcliffe receiving a Grammy nomination alongside co-star John Larroquette as principal soloists. Radcliffe also received performance nominations from the Drama Desk, The Outer Critic Circle, the Drama League and The Fred and Adele Astaire Awards. In addition, Broadway.com honored him with the Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Musical as well as Favorite Onstage Pair (with Larroquette).

Radcliffe has also just been voted Entertainer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly as the ‘most talented and original performer’ of 2011. He also just won two Teen Choice Awards and a Scream Award, as well as receiving two nominations for the upcoming People’s Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actor and Favorite Movie Star under 25.  Read more

Forbes List Of Hollywood’s ‘Best Actors for the Buck’

Delivering their annual list of Hollywood’s Best Actors for the Buck, Forbes has revealed who came out on top in Tinseltown this year. 

Based on the performers three major releases in the last five years, the news giant named Twilight actress Kristen Stewart at No. 1.  The twenty-one year old actress, who plays Bella Swan in the Stephenie Meyer vampire adaption, earns $55.83 for every $1 she is paid. 

The Princess Diaries star Anne Hathaway came in at No. 2, she averaged a return of $45.67.

Surprisingly Hathaway beat out Robert Pattinson, the other star of Meyer’s multi-million dollar story.  Pattinson’s additional films outside of the Twilight franchise, as pointed out by Forbes, didn’t fare well at the box office, causing the actor to score only $39.43 for every dollar he was paid.  Read more

Trailer #2: ‘The Woman in Black’ starring Daniel Radcliffe

The Woman in Black: A young lawyer (Radcliffe) travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals. courtesy of trailers.apple.com

Director: James Watkins

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Shaun Dooley

In theaters: February 3rd, 2012   Read more

Daniel Radcliffe’s First Post-Potter Role: “A character-driven, well-written horror film”

With the billion dollar Harry Potter franchise behind him, Daniel Radcliffe is moving on.  His first stop – The Woman in Black, a horror film from Eden Lake director James Watkins, a guy Radcliffe thought at first could possibly “an absolutely insane man,” until he got to know him. 

After reading the movie’s script, which is based on the book by Susan Hill, Radcliffe recalls that it was “a character-driven, well-written horror film,” that made him sign on to the flick.

The role calls for Radcliffe to play a widower by the name of Arthur Kipps, who is a lawyer that was left with a young son.  “He is sent to a small village to sort out the affairs of a deceased client, but as he delves into local secrets he encounters a ghostly presence that foretells a deadly curse.”  By many it was “certainly not a part that people can really compare to Harry, the actor also shared, but “compelling it was.”  And after starring in such an amazing and highly successful franchise such as Harry, it looks like the pressures off for now.  Radcliffe admits that he “doesn’t  have a long-term plan whatsoever.”   Read more

Trailer: ‘The Woman in Black’ starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer

The Woman in Black: While taking care of a deceased client’s estate, a young lawyer encounters a mysterious woman dressed in black and uncovers a tragic secret.

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer, Liz White, Alisa Khazanova
Director: James Watkins

In Theaters: February 3, 2012

Read more

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