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Monday, 23 October 2006

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Daniel Radcliffe: Fame makes dating tough

Harry Potter star says girls want him for his notoriety

Being famous isn't always magical for Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter.

"It's always a worry, yeah," Radcliffe, 17, tells Newsweek in its new issue about girls who want to go out with him simply because he's famous, "but I've got pretty good instincts for people.

"Normally, the people who are not genuine are the ones who say, 'You know I'm not just being your friend because you're Harry Potter, right?' And it's like, 'Uh, fine, but if that's the case, why do you need to say that?' "

He does date, though: "I do, yes, but not at the moment."

The actor, who is shooting the fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will appear next summer in the London stage revival of the Tony-winning drama Equus. He'll play a troubled young man obsessed with horses – and he'll have a nude scene.

"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," he says. "It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off – we don't know if I can yet – I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry.' "

Radcliffe began playing Potter at age 11, but he says he doesn't look back at his earlier films. "I will when I'm, like, 30 or 40, and I've got kids. I'll sit them down and say, 'See, this is what I'd done by the time I was your age. What have you done?' "

Laughing, he adds, "I always forget: sarcasm doesn't work in print."

Ultimately, he says, "I would like to look back at them in 10 or 20 years and possibly cringe a little bit. I wasn't an actor when I was 11, really. I was just a kid having the time of his life."