clairejaygreen: Daniel Radcliffe Not 'Comfortable' Being A Role Model

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Daniel Radcliffe Not 'Comfortable' Being A Role Model

'I don't think you should deify any human being,' 'Harry Potter' star told MTV News last year.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Daniel Radcliffe
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

The transition from child star to adult star often comes with some hiccups. In a recent interview with GQ, "Harry Potter" actor Daniel Radcliffe admits that there was a time when he found himself drinking a little too much.

"I became so reliant on [alcohol] to enjoy stuff," he said of the time during shooting on 2009's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Since then, the 21-year-old has slowed down, telling the magazine that he prefers to have a "quiet life." But Radcliffe has certainly been open about why he doesn't see himself as a role model.

Last year, he told MTV News, "I don't look at myself as a role model. I would never place myself on that pedestal, obviously. If other people want to place me there, that's up to them," he explained. "I would advise them not to because I don't think you should deify any human being. I think it's something that I've grown more comfortable with the idea."

And despite his impressive career and all of the charitable work he has done with organizations like the Trevor Project, Radcliffe suggested someone else his fans should look to for guidance instead.

"The thing I always say and I've often said in interviews, I think if people want a role model, Harry Potter's a very, very good role model. And he's something that won't change," Radcliffe added. "He'll be fixed in that permanent lovely way, and so those are the role models you want.

"I'm gonna grow old and get fat and stuff," he added with a good-natured laugh. "And so you don't want to make me a role model."

While Radcliffe tells GQ the paparazzi never caught him inebriated, when MTV News sat down with him, he did recall a certain pap shot of him smoking a cigarette that did get taken. But the star was willing to shrug it all off. "It's a terrible thing to admit to, but yes I'm gonna go to help [for smoking]. That stuff, you know, is part and parcel of the job and it comes with the territory and you have to let it wash over you," he said of the photographers.

Check out everything we've got on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2."

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