by Hollywood loves a redemption story, and Sunday night we got two for the price of one. Daniel Radcliffe finally got the critical acclaim to match his Potter stardom, winning his first Tony Award for his supporting role in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along, and this acclaimed Broadway production – which won three more Tonys , including Best Revival – belatedly did Sondheim’s infamous 1981 flop.
While this is undoubtedly a group hit for British actress-turned-director Maria Friedman and her main cast – Jonathan Groff (also a Tony winner for the show) and Lindsay Mendez – it has to be heartbreaking for the former Boy Wizard. He wasn’t exactly praising his acting talents – not even for the Potter films, in which he mainly focused on special effects that had never been seen before, or in years since, despite a surprisingly eclectic selection of projects.
However, the actor recently scored his first Bafta and Emmy nominations for his portrayal of comedian Weird Al Yankovic, and has now won a Tony. Have we misjudged his abilities in the past? Or has The Boy Who Couldn’t Act morphed into a legitimate thespian, resulting in a Radcliffaissance?
The efforts of a 12-year-old are hard to pin down – and yet we all did when the first Harry Potter film hit cinema screens in 2001. Radcliffe looked the part (albeit that’s mainly down to the scar and the specs), he had a camera-ready smile and a good – if overused – line instead of a broad charm, but he wasn’t exactly Daniel Day-Lewis. Even Radcliffe admitted as much when he looked back on his youthful efforts, saying “I don’t think acting could be called what I was doing in the first two films”.
In its defense, these infamous franchises are rarely known for their subtle performances. Alan Rickman is a great Snape, but he moves around Hogwarts’ Great Hall like an angry bat, and even the indomitable Maggie Smith starts to check out around the halfway point of the series. That’s because the director’s energies are very much focused on the big (million-pound) picture: correcting thousands of extra children, or seeing the extent of a fat troll.
However, Radcliffe’s performance improves over the Potter films, gaining nuance and emotional depth in the fourth film, Goblet of Fire. I especially love the scene in the second installment where he and Hermione with Emma Watson share a brief respite from the gloom as they dance to a song on the radio. It’s loose, spontaneous and affectionate, and Radcliffe is – for once – completely confident in his choices. Perhaps it was by osmosis – you’d be hard-pressed to share scenes with the likes of Rickman, Smith and Gary Oldman without picking up the oddity.
We now also know that, at the time, Radcliffe was struggling with the pressures of this sudden fame – which fueled his problems with alcohol. It could have gone the same way as child stars like Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes or Macaulay Culkin.
Instead, Radcliffe got a grip on his sobriety, and then used his newfound wealth and A-lister status to lock down some really weird projects. He was a murder suspect who grew horns in the 2013 film Horns, the hunchbacked Igor in the 2015 misfire Victor Frankenstein, and, notoriously, a farting corpse in the 2016 film Swiss Army Man. Radcliffe has also starred in a romcom (What If), a survival drama (Jungle), and an ultraviolent crime caper (Guns Akimbo).
None of this made a case for him as a grown-up star, a star who could soon match his Potter success – and who could also go much higher in society. (Something he’s keen to do given his recent clashes with author JK Rowling over trans issues.)
But I’d argue that’s because Potter put Radcliffe in the wrong bracket. Outside of Hogwarts, he didn’t seem like a natural Hollywood leading man – he’s not a Marvel superhero, full of fake charisma and Timothée Chalamet-esque hangover sexiness. He is an increasingly interesting character actor. He’s not afraid to take risks (the financial cushion helps a wizard), and he’ll definitely find more of those roles that suit him as he gets older.
Radcliffe already has a certain level of respect for his eccentric approach, which has supported experimental filmmakers by attaching his box-office-friendly name. He then received some of the best reviews of his career for playing Weird Al Yankovic (famous for his parody songs like My Bologna instead of My Sharona) in the 2022 biopic. The New York Times praised him lip-syncing “with such commitment that the veins in his neck almost pop.” Tim Robey of the Telegraph noted that Radcliffe was “clearly having the time of his life”.
He is the kind of actor whose effort you notice, and often recognize – a quality that appeals to theater audiences far more than cinema audiences.
Radcliffe’s first major post-license role was in Peter Shaffer’s play Equus, in the West End and then on Broadway, playing opposite his Potter co-star Richard Griffiths. While much of the conversation was taken up by the fact that 17-year-old Radcliffe had a nude scene, there was also praise for his committed performance as a troubled boy. The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer praised the way Radcliffe “holds a dime on emotion, shifting from sullen anger to raw vulnerability, or from excruciating pain to sudden childlike innocence and charm.”
Radcliffe took another big risk by starring in the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 2011, tackling big song and dance numbers. The reviewers weren’t convinced (his acting efforts were praised more, with one calling him an “honest, good-natured body” than his musical talents), but once again the stage allowed him to experiment and grow. The theater likes to experiment.
He is also back on the London stage, choosing challenging modern classics such as Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in 2013, in which Spencer praised Radcliffe’s “touching stoicism and simplicity…” because he is so underrated. There was also Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 2017, in which his “enthusiasm at school” prompted a nod of approval from the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish. However, it was his youthful exuberance that let him down in the Samuel Beckett Championship in 2020, where he played the decrepit Clov.
However, that gonzo strategy paid off handsomely with Merrily We Roll Along, Sondheim’s retrograde musical about three artistic friends and how their relationships change over the course of twenty years.
Radcliffe plays idealistic playwright Charley, who becomes overwhelmed when his composer partner Frank sells out. All his faults come pouring out in the lightning fast patent song Franklin Shepard, Inc. – which Radcliffe absolutely nails. He probably drew on his lifelong rap fandom; you can watch his excellent version of Alphabet Aerobics on YouTube.
It’s hard to tell if this is really a defining moment for Radcliffe as a thespian, or a happy culmination of a role that suits him, and his friends (Groff and Mendez) who are great friends in real life, giving the whole production a win. authenticity. Radcliffe also spoke about how being a parent shaped his emotional response to the role, and the poignant lyrics in the song Our Time: “It’s our time / Breathe in / Worlds to change, and worlds to win.”
He endears himself to the Broadway community by giving Sondheim’s failed show this dreamy redemption arc. Potter’s fame helped make Potter a huge commercial success, and this amazing company – of which Radcliffe was a vital member – ensured that this complex musical connected with audiences in a way it never had before.
Is it time for Radcliffe now? I’d say so: the Boy Wizard is finally doing some acting magic.
