It’s safe to say that Daniel Radcliffe has moved on from the “Harry Potter” movie series by choosing roles that are very different from playing a young wizard in a magical world. In 2011, Radcliffe had a critically acclaimed return to Broadway with his starring role as ambitious businessman J. Pierrepont Finch in the revival of the musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” And for his first movie after the end of the “Harry Potter” movie series, he chose to do a feature-film version of “The Woman in Black,” which is based on Susan Hill’s novel of the same title. (The book has also been made into a play, a TV-movie and a radio series.)
Set in the Victorian era, “The Woman in Black” movie tells the story of how a young attorney named Arthur Kipps (a widower whose wife died while giving birth to their son, Joseph) travels from London to a remote English village named Crythin Gifford where he has to go on business because of a deceased client who lived in Crythin Gifford. While staying in the client’s creepy mansion (called Eel Marsh House), Arthur encounters a ghost that has been haunting the village for years. The ghost is a woman who is clad entirely in black, and every time she appears, children end up dying.
Arthur is on the verge of being fired from his law firm unless he completes the job that he came to do in Crythin Gifford, so he, with the help of a local villager named Samuel Daily (played Ciarán Hinds), stays in the village to get finish his task and possibly solve the mystery of the Woman in Black. At the New York City press junket for “The Woman in Black,” I recently sat down with Radcliffe during a roundtable interview that he did with journalists. In the interview, Radcliffe talked about what he liked most about making a Gothic horror movie and what it was like to work with his real-life godson, who plays his son in “The Woman in Black.” I also asked Radcliffe about his starring role as Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg, whom Radcliffe will play in the 2013 movie “Kill Your Darlings.”
What did you enjoy the most about going back into the Victorian era for “The Woman in Black”?
On a completely superficial level, the costumes. If I could wear that stuff all the time, I really would. But I do love that period. When you put that [wardrobe] on, it makes you stand differently. It kind of ages you slightly, actually, so it was quite helpful in that effort.
What’s kind of great about that period is that it was a time when [England], having gone from a time of 5,000 years of being a completely pagan nation, we fell out of love with any kind of spirituality as soon as Christianity came in. And in that period, the Victorian era, [was] when suddenly, England started to come around to the idea of spirits and demons and the notion that there is potential to transcend the real world and the afterlife. That idea was very prominent at that time, so I suppose it’s very useful when telling a ghost story because everyone at that time believed in the possibility of these things existing.
“The Woman in Black” is from Hammer Films, which has a tradition of making Gothic horror movies. In your performance in “The Woman in Black” did you want to pay any tribute to Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing or any of the actors who starred in several Hammer horror movies?
Absolutely. Peter Cushing was the still center of all those films around which all the rest of that chaos could develop. So yes, if not actually paying tribute, I was certainly aware that had this movie been made in a different time, Peter Cushing would have gotten the part. It is the role he would have played in this film.
It’s interesting. The Hammer banner is wonderful. It’s a fantastic thing for us and for me, particularly, because having been in the British film industry all my life, if you’re not working with people who actually worked on the film, you’re working with their kids. So the person who did my makeup on all the “Potter” movies, her dad, Eddie Knight, did all the Hammer makeup
So growing up in the industry in England, you’re always very aware of those films and what they had and what they did for the industry as well in England. [Hammer Films], as well as the Ealing comedies, gave England a kind of confidence, in terms of filmmaking that they didn’t necessarily have before — it seems to me anyway — on kind of a commercial level.
But then also it’s great because we can push the horror thing a little more because Hammer’s there, and we can do stuff, like we can go back to old standards of creepy toys and a haunted house and all those kinds of things that recur. And because it’s Hammer, nobody questions it because it feels right within the frame of the film.
I think it’s a film of two halves. In the first 45 minutes, we were looking at things like “The Others” and “The Orphanage,” in terms of the tone. And then after that, it just gets a lot more bombastic. Once we get into the house, and it’s just James [Watkins, the director of “The Woman in Black”] playing with the audience. He worked out many of those scares and knew that he could just take over from then.
Did you read Susan Hill’s novel “The Woman in Black”? If so, how did reading the book affect your performance?
I did read the book. We [the people who made “The Woman in Black” film] are very different, in terms of how the story is framed. This is a very different adaptation. But also, I find some comfort in the fact that every adaptation of this book had been very different. It has to be changed in some way to make it fit the medium in which it’s going into. It’s the same thing I did with “Harry [Potter]”: I just go off the script, because if you then start bringing in stuff …
Here’s the thing: If I go home and I’m reading the book, and I go, “Oh, that’s great. That’s really, really good. I like that a lot.” And then I come in the next day and say to James, “Can we put this in somewhere?”
Then that means James will have to call Jane [Goldman], the screenwriter, and Jane would have to speak to Susan [Hill]. It can cloud issues, so it’s best to get all that stuff out by the time you get to production, obviously. And then rather than clouding the issue, it is best to go off the script.
What scene do you think was the scariest one in “The Woman in Black”?
I love all the stupid fake ones in the beginning — the water pipe and the bird twice in one scene — which is just James Watkins going, “Yeah, I can do a scare like that. And I’m going to be doing them whenever I like over the next hour-and-a-half.” That’s just him showing he can do those things, I think.
What scared me the most was the hand going up to the window, when I touch the window, and the face appears. I knew [it was going to happen], and it still got me [when I watched it]. I had completely forgotten about it.
Actually, when I was filming the movie, you know that shot in the trailer with my face in the window and another face comes up? That shot, which is brilliant, I had no idea it was going happen for that shot. So when I saw the trailer for the first time, at the end, I was properly freaked by it.
Do you personally have a belief in ghosts?
It’s non-existent. I don’t have any belief in ghosts or supernatural or anything like that.
Can you comment on Arthur Kipps feeling ambivalent about whether or not he believes in ghosts?
One of the first questions I asked James when I met him was, “Why does he [Arthur Kipps] stay there?” The moment you read the first page, you know it’s going to end badly, like, “Get out of there, you idiot!” There’s that great line where I say to somebody, “Oh no, it’s fine. I’ll just work through the night.” And you’re saying, “What?”
So I said to James, “Why does he stay in the house? What’s that about?” And James said, “Well, here’s a young man who’s lost his wife. He goes to this house, and he suddenly starts seeing what he thinks is a ghost of a dead woman. To have any kind of confirmation that that is what he’s seeing would mean he would be able to confirm that there is an afterlife, which means he one day will see his wife again.” So he’s staying there for some kind of sense of consolation, I suppose.
Misha Handley, who plays your son in “The Woman in Black,” is your godson in real life. Since you’ve known Misha for his entire life, at what point did you realize that he wanted to become an actor?
I don’t think he does now. He’s 4. He wants to be everything. It’s changing every day. He has no ambition whatsoever in this area, to my knowledge. I think he had a really good time on the film. I think he’d do it again, but not for any other reason than “That got me out of school for a few days.”
It was fantastic having him there. I became totally protective of him, just worried because he was 4 when we filmed it. I was hoping that the first time he stepped on set, it would be a really nice day and he’s have a fun time. No. It was a night shoot. It was freezing cold.
We were on a train platform somewhere. He had a nice time for the first two hours, and then he was like, “It’s cold. Can I go to bed now?” And I was like, “No, no, no. You’ve got two hours to go, I’m afraid, Mish,” at which point, it was a battle to try and keep him awake [and] not crying. There comes a point where after you’ve done for the first three-and-a-half hours, that last half-hour, he does not want to do it. And there comes a point where it doesn’t matter how many sweets you offer him or iPad games you offer him, he doesn’t want to.
And so, that night, we said, “You’ve done really well. You can go home.” And he came back the next couple of nights. He got more used to it as it was going on. But I was very protective of him and wanted to make sure exactly that he had a nice time. I was so obsessed with that at the time that I didn’t really notice that he actually gave a really nice performance.
We had a natural chemistry. There are some very sweet moments, like just before he says “Hello, Sam” to Ciarán [Hinds], I had been turning around to him. What was great about it though was that he didn’t really know what we were doing there. So it would get to the point where he would have to say a line, and he’d not say anything.
If I had to hold his hand, I’d give his hand a little squeeze. And he’d look up at me like, “What?” And then I said, “Say, ‘Hello, Sam.’” And he’d say, “Hello, Sam.” And he’d look at me again, like, “Happy now?”
He’s very sweet, and he was really quite funny. He didn’t get it. The way I told it to him was, “I’m playing a dad in this, so I need you to help me.” And so he was just helping Uncle Dan. That’s what he thought he was doing.
In horror movies, there’s usually a subtext that goes beyond the scary moments. What was the subtext of “The Woman in Black” movie that appealed to you?
That was one of the things I loved about it: that it felt unusual for the genre, because it was unashamedly was a horror film, but is a character-driven and does have some really strong themes. For me, the film was about what happens when we don’t move on from a loss, if we can’t move on from a loss. Arthur is somebody who has been devastated by his loss and has become completely disconnected from the world, from his son, from his life.
The Woman in Black has had a terrible wrong done to her in her life and, of course, has been unable to move on from that, and has been consumed by grief and rage and has carried that desire for revenge into the afterlife with her. And then there’s the Fishers’ marriage, which has all gone wrong there.
The fact that [Samuel Daily] is in denial and [Mrs. Daily, played by Janet McTeer] has been having visions, everybody is reacting to grief in a different way in this film. And if you like the battle in the film, as it were, between Arthur and the Woman in Black, it’s kind of a fight for closure and a fight for who can move on first. They [Arthur and the Woman in Black] are the two most extreme reactions to a death.
Would you consider yourself a fan of horror films?
I would. I wouldn’t consider myself an aficionado in any way. I’m not one of those guys who will just see a trailer and go, “Oh, I’m going to see that, just so I can rate it against all the other horror films I know.” I’m like that about some things, but not about horror. I’ve never had that obsessiveness about this particular genre, which comes from in part from the fact that I could never cope with gore or things like that, so I would never have been able to be exposed to everything the genre has to offer.
Do you feel more comfortable being a stage actor or a screen actor? How does performing in front of a live audience affect your acting?
It’s not even about having the audience there. It’s actually about the two things that are observing you — one is an audience, and one is a camera — and the audience is really easy to forget about, and the camera is not. And that’s what I find hard.
And I also find hard the broken-up nature of filming, which is odd, because I’ve done it all my life. By the way, these are conclusions I’ve come to very recently. The broken-up nature of filming means that I don’t have a process, I just go on my instincts, and it means that if I come to a scene, and I’m not actually sure of the intention in that scene, then it shows, to my mind.
But on stage, I don’t have to think about that, because the whole story is being told in one go. All I have to do is go on stage and listen, which is what I’m very good at. Listening, being engaged, I have no problems with. On stage, that’s wonderful, because all you have to do is go out there and let the show happen to you, in a way. Whereas on film, because it’s so broken-up, it can sometimes mean you come back to a scene, and if you’re slightly unsure of what exactly you should be doing in that, it reads.
Can you talk about working with Ciarán [Hinds], whom you previously worked with on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2”?
It’s funny, both me and James [Watkins], the first time we met, Ciarán was both at the top of our lists to play David.
And was this before or after you and Ciarán worked together on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2”?
This was after “Deathly Hallows.”
What are you most looking forward to about playing Allen Ginsberg in the movie “Kill Your Darlings”?
What’s been wonderful so far has been doing all the research. It’s been great. It’s been looking into his childhood and his life. I’m reading the journals at the moment. I’m about to read the biography. It’s fantastic!
Obviously, he’s an extremely interesting character. What’s interesting about him, the more I learn about him, is that in his life, he was more or less the most placatory person you could ever have met. He was all about trying to keep peace and try to keep any situation calm and not upset people. His mother had a deep personality disorder, so he was at home a lot of times as a kid, just watching and trying to make sure that everything was OK.
So that’s how he was, which is why it seems freaky that he was so confrontational in his poetry. It was like that side that could never come out in any kind of social interaction that was suddenly able to be unleashed.
One of the things I’m looking forward to working on it is mainly working with the director. It’s his first film. It’s a young guy called John Krokidas. I think he’s going to make a fantastic movie. He’s co-written it as well. He’s just a really super-smart guy.
Do you have a dialect coach yet?
Oh yeah. I’m working on my New Jersey Jew [accent] at the moment.
What was it like to film the scene in “The Woman in Black” when Arthur Kipps gets stuck in quicksand-like mud?
That was two days of filming in a kids’ TV slime that was obviously shit brown, rather than green. And it was cold. Basically, how that scene looked was pretty much how that was. So that probably tells you most of what you need to know.
For more info: "The Woman in Black" website
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