Ain't It Cool News interviewed Daniel in promotion of Escape from Pretoria.
I want to talk a little about the film and your career in
general. I find it endlessly fascinating that after coming up as a
child actor in a major franchise, you’ve made the seemingly deliberate
move into quirkier or offbeat work like Equus and Swiss Army Man, and
now, Escape from Pretoria. Can you tell me a little bit about that
transition?
You know, it’s mostly just inspired by the fact that I’m
in a position to do things that I like. I mean, at first there was a
feeling coming out of Potter…there was definitely a certain amount of
feeling that I had to prove that I could do lots of different things.
That led to me always knowing that I wanted to have a wide variety in my
work if that was possible. And I think a lot of my journey after
Potter has been me finding out what I’m good at and what I like. And it
makes me really happy to do it, and I’m in the position to simply base
my career around the things that make me happy to do, and I balance that
with a pathological need to be working at all times, but I am getting
better at not just doing things because I have the time, but picking the
things that I love and that I know I’m going to love doing.
It seems like you were dipping the toe in the pool and
challenging stereotypes as early as your appearance on Extras (which I
loved, by the way).
(laughs) Yeah, well that was particularly about –-
obviously, I’m a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and The Office, and just to
be on the show was a big deal. And that was very fun to do
acting-wise. But what it gave me the chance to do was to take the piss
out of sort of ridiculous, arrogant, slightly braggadocious child star
stereotypes. And, I can’t remember how old I was, probably fifteen or
sixteen, so I was old enough to realize that’s what people probably
thought I was, so he gave me a chance to take the piss out of it, and
hopefully communicate to some people that it was not the person that I
was.
Yeah, there have to be some mixed emotions about freeing
yourself from the obligations of a machine like the Harry Potter
franchise and the back-against-the-wall freedom of carving out a fresh
identity with performances that allow you to challenge the public
perception of who you are as an actor.
Yeah, I mean –- that’s the thing: looking back during that
crucible it wasn’t a big deal. It sort of showed people that I was
willing to hedge up, and challenge myself, which I think was something
people needed to see at that moment in time — you know, to believe that I
was going to take being an actor seriously. And that was the case for a
while. I’m sure to some people I’m still very much bridging that. But
I’m feeling much more secure in who I am and my abilities, not that I
still don’t have self-doubt or insecurity, but I definitely feel like –-
if you had said to me ten years ago at the end of Potter, if you had
presented me with like the career that I have had since then, and said This is what you’re going to be doing for the next ten years,
I would have bitten your hand off with delight. I’m sort of very happy
with how it’s gone so far. There’s still time for it to go wrong! But
I’m very happy.
As an actor who is so well known for a specific on-screen
identity, what is that transformation like for you to play a character
like Tim Jenkin, where you grow a beard and vanish into the physicality
of the role?
What’s funny is: the beard, I literally grow whenever I’m
not working, because I hate shaving with a passion. The beard was like,
they wanted me to grow it out, and I was like, “Yeah, great, that can
be done.” And actually I was really resistant to the idea of a wig; I
was just kind of trying to grow my hair out, but my hair does not do
what Tim’s does even if I grow it, so they put the wig on. I was like,
“Oh, actually, that is really good.” There is a lovely thing that
happens, and it doesn’t happen on every job at all: sometimes I just
look like myself, but on this one (and on Kil Your Darlings where I did
the eyes and the hair, and on Imperium, where I actually shaved my
head), there is something very helpful sometime about when you
look in the mirror and see a different person. It’s something sort of
quite liberating, and you feel more liberated to push yourself into a
different physicality, because you look so different.
It’s very, very interesting seeing you, whether you’re transforming physically like that, or something
like Swiss Army Man where you’re just absolutely taking the piss out of
how the public sees you. That’s a fantastic thing. That’s gotta be
liberating. Now, circling back to Harry Potter just briefly, tell me
about working with Ian Hart again. You had your first dramatic scenes
as a relatively new child actor with him [HP 1], and now you’re playing against him in Escape from Pretoria as a seasoned performer. That has to be a unique experience.
It’s really cool, and it’s an experience I’m having more
and more, and it’s both lovely and sort of a reminder to me that I’m
getting older. I can’t even begin to imagine what for them it must be
like, for the people on the other side of that. But for me, Ian has not
changed at all. I said to him, “Why, you look the same as you looked
twenty years ago,” and he was so nice. It’s really nice to work with
him again as an adult, and get to do proper acting with him again. I’m
also having that experience in the play I’m doing at the moment in
London where one of the actors in it, a guy called Carl Johnson, who I
worked with maybe on my second or third day ever on a film set on a film
for the BBC when I was maybe nine, or just ten; and yeah, it’s a really
cool thing that I’m gonna get for a while: working with people who I
worked with twenty years ago.
Speaking of working with people, how much did you draw on
the experiences of the real Tim Jenkin, who has a cameo in the film as a
prisoner? Did you get to talk to him much?
Yeah, we were really lucky, actually. We got to Skype
with Tim and Steve for a bit, and we were able to ask, and in spite of
having told his story about a hundred thousand times, he got very
patient with us, and was great at answering all of our questions about
his book, and he was on set as a very valuable resource. We could ask
him about stuff and about how things worked. It was kind of
intimidating to have him around, because we’re making his life into a
film, but it was definitely a great resource.
So, Daniel, what do you have next, what’s next in the pipeline?
So I’m doing this play right now, and that will take me to
the end of March. I’ve got this film and I’ve also got Guns Akimbo
coming out in quite quick succession. They’ve done like an interactive
movie with The Unbreakabele Kimmy Schmidt, and I’m in that, and that’s
coming out in like the middle, I think…actually I don’t know when that’s
coming out, but at some point in all this. I think after that I’m
gonna take a break, and read some scripts and figure out what next. But
I’m not rushing out, I’m going, I’ve been going since the middle of last year, so I’m okay to have a little break for a while.
Well, after The Woman in Black, I am dreaming of a big budget
remake of Dracula, with you as Jonathan Harker, or frankly anybody else
in that story.** I loved The Woman in Black. I loved seeing Hammer
return, and that you were on the flagship title there.
I love that film! It’s a brilliantly made film, and yeah, I would love doing that! I really love that idea, so if anyone’s reading, make it so.
source: aintitcool.com
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Ain't It Cool News interview
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8 March 2020
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