People Are Highlighting Daniel Radcliffe’s Amazing Career Trajectory After He Said Years Ago His “Harry Potter” Wealth Gave Him “Immense Freedom Career-Wise”
Daniel Radcliffe is having quite a major moment right now, and fans are reflecting on just how far he’s come since his Harry Potter days.
Cindy Ord / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions, Warner Bros / ?Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
As you may have seen, Daniel won his first ever Tony on Sunday, taking home the award for Featured Actor in a Musical for his role as Charley Kringas in Merrily We Roll Along.
In his acceptance speech, the 34-year-old held back tears as he thanked his colleagues and loved ones, specifically shouting out costars Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez — both of whom were also nominated for their performances, with Jonathan winning.
“Thank you so much to our cast, everybody on that stage. It is an honor to be on stage with you every single night, and I will miss it so much,” he said. “Speaking of missing things, Jonathan, Lindsay, I will miss you so much. I don’t really have to act in this show. I just have to look at you and feel everything I want to feel. I will never have it this good again.”
Daniel also got a laugh from the crowd when he acknowledged just how long he’s been working in showbiz while thanking his agent, who’s been representing him “literally [his] entire life.”
“That’s not a joke,” he clarified, to the audience’s amusement.
Of course, Daniel is one of his generation's best-known former child actors. He starred as the titular character in the Harry Potter films for a decade, and the series remains one of the highest-grossing movie franchises ever (including the subsequent Wizarding World films, in which Daniel does not appear).
The first movie was released in 2001 when Daniel was only 11. By the time the eighth and final film wrapped a decade later, he was nearly 21 and had spent his entire adolescence as one of the most recognizable young stars on the planet.
As we’ve seen numerous times in Hollywood, exposure to such astronomical levels of scrutiny and wealth at a young age can sometimes be incredibly detrimental to a person’s well-being. Daniel has discussed this in the past, admitting that his childhood stardom made it more difficult for him to understand who he was away from acting.
“Ultimately, the hardest thing about growing up in the spotlight, it’s not the easy access to drugs or the strange, sort of pandering world you enter into,” he told the Mirror in 2016 when he was 27. “The difficulty is trying to work out who you are while constantly coming up against a perception of yourself that everybody else already has.”
He continued: “I think it’s very important, especially when you become famous young, to work out who you are without fame and without that as part of your identity because that will go. Fame does not last forever. For anyone.”
Despite this, Daniel also told the Mirror at the time that he was incredibly “grateful” the Harry Potter films gave him the money to have “immense freedom career-wise.”
“Because having money means you don’t have to worry about it, which is a very lovely freedom to have,” he explained.
This brings us to today, when, following his milestone Tony win, Daniel is being praised for how he’s navigated his career and image on the other side of such immense childhood stardom.
One post on X with nearly 185,000 likes noted that Daniel “survived the insane fame of his childhood to become a brave and interesting artist.” In response, another user echoed Daniel’s comments about financial freedom, wagering that he “realised early on that he now had security & freedom to do whatever he wanted to do with his career & he keeps making really, really good choices.”
“I love that he has done experimental stuff, theatre, silly sitcoms, edgy indie films, gothic horror, musical theatre, and also seems to have a cultural hinterland beyond just acting,” the original poster replied.
This sentiment was widely mirrored as other X users celebrated what “an astute, talented & grounded performer” he's become in his post-Potter career.
“Daniel Radcliffe should be so f***** up from being the kind of child star of that magnitude that he was, and by all accounts, he’s a decent guy, a great actor, and an incredible ally. Good for him, that’s nice!” read a post with nearly 90,000 likes. While the user did not elaborate on the details of Daniel’s allyship, the actor has publicly supported trans rights in response to anti-trans comments made by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
“daniel radcliffe truly has one of my favourite career trajectories ever,” added someone else. “he’s talented and chooses such unique and interesting roles, you can tell he is just having so much fun and he didn’t let HP define him yet he loves and respects it, love him.”
All in all, the love for Daniel couldn’t be stronger online — demonstrated by one post that described the actor as “impossible to dislike.”
You can watch Daniel’s Tony acceptance speech here.
Daniel Radcliffe wins and his Merrily We Roll Along co-star Jonathan Groff is overwhelmed with emotion ???? #TonyAwards pic.twitter.com/0cDYTzs6ig
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) June 17, 2024
CBS / Twitter: @DEADLINE
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