Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to fame at age twelve, when he began portraying Harry Potter in the film series of the same name.
Gatekeepers News reports that Radcliffe has received various awards and nominations.
Early Life
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, London, England on 23 July 1989, the only child of Marcia Jeannine Gresham (née Jacobson) and literary agent Alan George Radcliffe. His Jewish mother was born in South Africa, traces her ancestry to Jewish immigrants from Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, and was raised in the English town of Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex. His Northern Irish father was raised in a “very working-class” Protestant family in Banbridge in County Down. In 2019, he explored both sides of his family history in the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? Radcliffe’s parents had both acted as children. As a casting agent, his mother has been involved in BBC productions such as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Radcliffe was educated at three private schools for boys in London: Redcliffe School, Sussex House School, and the City of London School. After the release of the first Harry Potter film, attending school proved difficult for him as some fellow pupils became hostile, though he states that they were just trying to “have a crack at the kid that plays Harry Potter” rather than acting out of jealousy. As his acting career began to consume his schedule, he continued his education through on-set tutors. He has admitted to not being a very good student, considering school useless and finding the work “really difficult”. He achieved A grades in the three AS level exams that he took in 2006, but decided to take a break from education and did not attend university. Part of his reasoning was that he already knew he wanted to be an actor and screenwriter, and that it would be difficult to have a normal college experience.
Career
Radcliffe made his acting debut at age 10 in the BBC One television film David Copperfield (1999), followed by his feature film debut in The Tailor of Panama (2001). The same year, he starred as Harry Potter in the film adaptation of the J.K. Rowling fantasy novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Over the next decade, he played the eponymous role in seven sequels, culminating with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). During this period, he became one of the world’s highest-paid actors and gained worldwide fame, popularity, and critical acclaim.
Following the success of Harry Potter, Radcliffe challenged himself acting in a variety of genres such as the romantic comedy What If? (2013), the horror films The Woman in Black (2012) and Victor Frankenstein (2015), the comedy-drama film Swiss Army Man (2016), the heist thriller film Now You See Me 2 (2016), and the action comedy The Lost City (2022). He earned critical acclaim for his portrayals of poet Allen Ginsberg in the drama film Kill Your Darlings (2013), FBI agent Nate Foster in the thriller film Imperium (2016), and Weird Al Yankovic in the comedy Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) earning a Critics’ Choice Television Award for the latter. Since 2019, he has starred in the TBS anthology series Miracle Workers.
Radcliffe branched out to stage acting in 2007, starring in the West End and Broadway productions of Equus. From 2011 to 2012 he portrayed J. Pierrepont Finch in the Broadway revival of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He continued in Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan (2013–2014) in the West End and Broadway and a revival of Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (2017) at The Old Vic. He also starred in the satirical plays Privacy (2016) and The Lifespan of a Fact (2018), respectively off and on Broadway. In 2022, he starred in the New York Theatre Workshop revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
Personal Life
Radcliffe splits his time between homes in the Fulham area of London and the West Village neighbourhood of New York City’s Manhattan borough. He has been in a relationship with American actress Erin Darke since 2012, after having met on the set of Kill Your Darlings. In March 2023, they were confirmed to be expecting their first child together.
In 2008, Radcliffe revealed that he has a mild form of the neurological disorder dyspraxia, which sometimes prevents him from doing simple activities such as writing or tying his shoelaces.
Radcliffe has expressed his fondness for rap music and admitted to having “an obsession with memorising complicated, lyrically intricate and fast songs”. On 28 October 2014, he rapped the 1999 Blackalicious song “Alphabet Aerobics” during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Net Worth
The British actor has a net worth of $110 million.
