Post-Harry Potter, star Daniel Radcliffe has taken on no shortage of singular projects, playing anyone from a flatulent corpse (Swiss Army Man) to a gun-toting computer programmer (Guns Akimbo), but there’s one pitch that stands out as “one of the worst” he’s ever heard.
While guesting on Hot Ones ahead of his Broadway return in Every Brilliant Thing and the premiere of comedy The Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins, the Kill Your Darlings actor was asked about bizarre or unique pitches he’s agreed to take on. The question made him call back the memory of a particularly horrendous pitch for the Harry Potter trio.
“One of the worst ideas that I’ve ever heard: During Potter, somebody came to us and, I think, asked — like they wanted to cast all three of us — me, Emma [Watson] and Rupert [Grint] — in a remake of Wizard of Oz, where Emma was Dorothy, I can’t remember what Rupert was and I just remember I was going to be the lion, but also, he knew karate. I was like a karate-kicking Cowardly Lion,” Radcliffe said.
He added, “I was like 14 or 15, and I was like, ‘I don’t know a lot about the world, but this is a bad idea. This should not be made.’”
Radcliffe was just seen in Sony Pictures Classics‘ December release of Merrily We Roll Along, the live-filmed version of the four-time Tony Award-winning musical revival that also starred Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez.
As filming for the new Harry Potter reboot series begins, Radcliffe has passed the baton to new actor Dominic McLaughlin, to whom he wrote a letter. He said he didn’t “want to be a specter in the life of these children” but sent a note conveying: “‘I hope you have the best time, and an even better time than I did — I had a great time, but I hope you have an even better time.’”