Daniel Radcliffe urges press to stop asking reboot cast about original trio

Daniel Radcliffe is full of praise for the reboot cast of Harry Potter, even going so far as to say that his successor will outshine him.

In a recent video interview with ScreenRant, Radcliffe voiced strong support for Dominic McLaughlin, who will lead HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series reboot alongside Arabella Stanton (Hermione Granger) and Alastair Stout (Ron Weasley).

“When these kids got cast, there is a whole thing around the Internet being like, ‘We have to look after these kids!’” Radcliffe said. “If you really mean that, then one of the things you can do is don’t ask about us — me, Emma [Watson] and Rupert [Grint] — all the time. I would like not to be weird spectral phantoms in these children’s lives. Just let them get on [with it], it’s going to be a new, different thing. I’m sure Dominic is going to be better than me.”

Radcliffe’s comments double as both a vote of confidence and a plea to the media: allow the new generation to define the franchise on their own terms, without constant comparisons to himself, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.

The actor previously revealed on Good Morning America that he privately reached out to McLaughlin following the casting announcement.

“I wrote to Dominic and sent him a letter and he sent me a very sweet note back,” Radcliffe said. “I don’t want to be a specter in the life of these children but I just wanted to write to him to say, ‘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.’ And I do, I just see these pictures of him and the other kids and I just want to hug them. They just seem so young. I just look at them and say, ‘Oh, it’s crazy I was doing that at that age.’ But it’s also incredibly sweet and I hope they’re having a great time.”

While Radcliffe has long expressed gratefulness for his time in the franchise, he admitted he rarely revisits the original films and may instead introduce his own child to the HBO reboot.

“I’ll probably show my kid that so he doesn’t have to watch me,” he quipped. “I think that will be more fun. I would probably enjoy it more… I hate watching myself, generally. I would like to watch the earlier films more because I’m so much further away from them. When I was 18 or 10, I was embarrassed by my 10 or 11 year old self.”