Daniel Radcliffe: Less Harry, More Sex Scenes

It may have been his choice to bring Harry Potter to life, but Daniel Radcliffe sure has dropped all inhibitions when it comes to stepping away from the famous boy wizard he helps portray. It is quite an admirable accomplishment - in between working on Harry Potter (from which, he admits it himself, he doesn't get too much of a break) - seeing how they have to shoot all seven movies before the actors outgrow the main characters too much. Radcliffe does find time for performances that seem poised to separate him from his fictional twin. In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, he speaks about his latest performance in the Australian movie December Boys, where he plays an orphaned teenage character named Maps.

"I needed just to prove to myself that I could absolutely go off and do something else. The question I get asked a lot is about being stereotyped as Harry, or rather typecast" he admits. "I never thought of that as being an option for myself, but I totally understood why people would ask it. So thought it would make a lot more sense to start doing different things before [the] Harry Potter [films] ended, sort of in conjunction with them, rather than waiting till they're all done and then trying to break away".

It's a clever move - not to mention a risky one, seeing how Harry Potter is, in many ways, a ready-to-go success which is very difficult to screw up. Radcliffe admits that he has taken up roles in such productions as December Boys and Equus precisely because he wanted people to take him seriously. "If you can do something like Equus, that has a much different, more grown-up audience, I think that shows people you really want to try out different things. It makes them take you more seriously", he says.

When asked what attracted him to December Boys, he confesses that he found the script an instant favorite. "December Boys was the standout by a long, long way. It had the most heart and the most warmth", he says.

When asked about his sex scene with co-star Theresa Palmer, he comments, "what I love about that scene is that it's very, very sweet. It's a mixture of genuine innocence and something that's not anywhere near innocent. Even though you get the feeling she's being very overtly sexy, it still seems very harmless and tender and caring. It's like the real goal isn't having sex. She says to him, 'I always want you to think of me as your first'".