Daniel Radcliffe Considered It Horrible to Receive Acting Advice From Gary Oldman in ‘Harry Potter’
Daniel Radcliffe collaborated with one of his own acting idols Gary Oldman in the Harry Potter series. Although he was more than excited to learn from the veteran actor, Radcliffe would’ve found receiving advice from his older co-star insulting.
How Daniel Radcliffe felt about working with Gary Oldman
Radcliffe and Oldman have often had nothing but kind words to say about working with each other in the Harry Potter series. Radcliffe not only admired Oldman’s acting, but being near The Professional star also helped enhance his own performance.
“He’s always somebody who — just from being around, I don’t know whether it is from some kind of quite pure and childish desire to want to impress him or out of the fact that he just gets something out of me — having him around for some reason on the fifth film was such an amazing thing for me as an actor, and hopefully he’ll have that effect again,” Radcliffe said in a 2011 interview with MTV News.
Meanwhile, Oldman was impressed by Radcliffe’s work both in Harry Potter and outside of the franchise. With Harry Potter coming to an end, Oldman noticed Radcliffe’s willingness to do projects that he didn’t have to like Equus.
“I don’t know many 17, 18-year-olds that would have done [it]. And he’s now singing and dancing on Broadway. He pops up out of these holes. And he’s got f*** you money, so he can do what he wants. And [he’s] dedicated, takes it very seriously and works very hard,” Oldman said.
Despite their mutual admiration, Oldman never gave professional advice to his younger co-star. But Radcliffe believed that this was for the best.
“He’d never patronize me enough to give me advice,” Radcliffe said in a resurfaced interview with The Orange County Register. “That’s a horrible thing to do unless you’re really, really close to somebody. Me and Gary get on very well, we’re quite close, he just isn’t the type of guy to do that. You just learn from watching him.”
Gary Oldman felt ‘Harry Potter’ saved his life
Oldman had a lot of gratitude towards projects like Harry Potter. Movies like the wizard series weren’t just huge paydays for the actor, but quietly benefited his personal life as well. Oldman wanted to spend more time with his family, but he was worried that the changing cinematic landscape would’ve made that difficult.
“At 42 years old I woke up divorced and I had custody of [my] boys,” Oldman said on The Drew Barrymore Show. “That was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being in Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places. So, I turned down a lot of work.”
Spending time with his children took precedence over his career, especially after Oldman felt he’d already sacrificed precious time with his eldest son.
“I was really not there for [my] first boy and then I got the opportunity to have these other two kids and I thought, ‘I’ve now been given a real gift to be the dad I imagined I wanted to be or could be with the first boy, Alfie, I’ve got a chance to repair this and switch it around,’” Oldman said.
The Harry Potter series was in the same category as a few other films that allowed him the time that he wanted.
“Thank God for Harry Potter,” Oldman said. “I tell you, the two — Batman and Harry Potter — really, they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids.”
Daniel Radcliffe wanted a career like Gary Oldman
Radcliffe made a conscious decision to choose more interesting and sometimes smaller projects after finishing up with Harry Potter. His goal was to model his career after other actors who demonstrated a lot of diversity in their work like Oldman.
“When I look at Gary Oldman’s career, that’s what I look at and go, ‘Oh my God! That’s amazing!’ The versatility and range shown there… And, you know, I believe I’m capable of that,” Radcliffe once told Empire (via HuffPost).
