Harry Potter star's battle with a new demon... alcohol
Daniel Radcliffe says he has gone teetotal to beat a destructive taste for whisky and parties.
From the day he was cast as the bespectacled boy wizard in the first film adaptation of Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe appeared to take child stardom in his stride.
But on the weekend it emerged that the pressures of fame made him so reliant on alcohol for a time that he is now teetotal and prefers to spend his evenings at home with his girlfriend rather than at parties.
Radcliffe said he became dependent on alcohol to enjoy himself after he turned 18 and was filming Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. He said he became increasingly "complacent" about his job as he developed a penchant for whisky and partying.
He said: "I became so reliant on [alcohol] to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamoured with the idea of living some sort of famous person's lifestyle that really isn't suited to me."
He said he was fortunate that the paparazzi failed to capture his drink-fuelled excess. "I really got away with that because there were many instances when a shot like that could have been taken," he said.
Realising he had to change his ways, Radcliffe stopped drinking last August and has not touched a drop of alcohol since.
"I'm actually enjoying the fact I can have a relationship with my girlfriend where I'm really pleasant and I'm not ....ing up totally all the time," he said of his new lifestyle.
He told GQ magazine: "As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time, that doesn't work for me. I do that very unsuccessfully. I'd just rather sit at home and read, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh.
"There's no shame in enjoying the quiet life. And that's been the realisation of the past few years for me."
Asked what advice he would give to his younger self, Radcliffe replied: "Don't try too hard to be something you're not."
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, the last instalment in the franchise, is released this month. Radcliffe said he felt "emotional, nostalgic, elated" that the series based on JK Rowling's books was coming to an end.
Radcliffe was 11 when he was first cast as Harry. In recent years he has sought to carve out a post-Potter career, winning plaudits for his stage performance in Equus. He is currently appearing in the Broadway musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and recently finished filming a big screen version of Susan Hill's ghost story The Woman In Black.
Now aged 21, he said it was his "personal crusade" to prove that child stars do not have to burn out.
"If I can make a career for myself after Potter, and it goes well, and is varied and with longevity, then that puts to bed the 'child actors argument'. If I can do it, in the biggest film franchise of all time, no other child actor who comes after will ever have to answer those same bloody questions."
Aside from artworks by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, which grace his homes in London and Manhattan, Radcliffe is not one for extravagant spending.
He said of his estimated £48 million fortune: "I don't know what to do with it. I'm very fortunate to have it, and it gives you room to manoeuvre. But the main thing about having money is it means you don't have to worry about it. And that for me is a lovely thing. It's not for fast cars and hookers."
Radcliffe has never confirmed who is his girlfriend, but he is said to be dating Olive Uniacke, stepdaughter of Harry Potter producer David Heyman.
The Telegraph, London
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