'Harry Potter': Daniel Radcliffe, 'Today,' 'nice to go out with a bang' (video) -- Appearing on NBC's Today Show Monday, actor Daniel Radcliffe spoke about what it was like to complete the Harry Potter series of films, a project he has worked on since he was 11 years old. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, based on the last book in the wizard series by J. K. Rowling, premieres in New York Monday evening.
"It's nice to go out with a bang," Daniel Radcliffe said about the ending of the series.
Asked what filming the ending was like for him, the actor replied, "It's kind of odd. We actually finished filming it five months ago. So we've been through our period of mourning and done all that." About the last day of filming, however, he admitted there were "lots of tears, as you might expect; it's 10 years of our lives."
On the other hand, he said, they had been filming the two films together for 18 months, so there was a sense of relief as well. "We were tired by then." Though it was sad, in reality, there was this sense of, "'I kind of want to sleep now.'"
He said that a lot of people are now asking him if he's sad. He joked, "I wasn't until you mentioned it, but now I'm getting upset again."
His feelings now are more like, "I'm pleased with this film; and I think the last one's going to be fantastic, so it's nice to go out with a bang."
Asked about the souvenirs he took home from the set, he said he took a pair of glasses from the first film and the last. The first glasses, he said, "now seem tiny because my head was so much smaller then."
Meredith Vieira also asked Daniel Radcliffe about his work after Harry Potter -- making the film The Woman in Black (based on the ghost novel by Susan Hill) and returning to Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Though he does not want to separate himself from Harry Potter, since he's proud of his work in the series, he said his new roles allow "people to see me as an actor rather than a character."
Wrapping up his upcoming work where he plays a widower and father, and then sings and dances, he said, "I'm hoping to surprise some people in the course of next year."
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 opens November 19, 2010.
VIDEO: See a clip of Daniel Radcliffe's appearance on Today in the left-hand column of this page, or here.
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