Initial release: 2024Director: Clint EastwoodDistributed by: Warner Bros. PicturesCinematography: Yves BélangerProduction companies: Dichotomy; Gotham Group; Malpaso Productions
Initial release: 2024
Director: Clint Eastwood
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Cinematography: Yves Bélanger
Production companies: Dichotomy; Gotham Group; Malpaso Productions
Clint Eastwood interview: "Human emotion makes people turn wrong into right."
By Kaori Iida
Thursday March 21, 2019 NHK
At 88 years old, legendary director and actor Clint Eastwood has released his latest movie, "The Mule." It tells the story of a man in his 90s, broke and alone, who is offered the job of drug courier for a Mexican cartel. It's based on an article Eastwood read in The New York Times.
He recently sat down with NHK's Los Angeles Bureau Chief Kaori Iida to talk about the new movie and what drives him to keep going at his age
.
By Kaori Iida
Thursday March 21, 2019 NHK
At 88 years old, legendary director and actor Clint Eastwood has released his latest movie, "The Mule." It tells the story of a man in his 90s, broke and alone, who is offered the job of drug courier for a Mexican cartel. It's based on an article Eastwood read in The New York Times.
He recently sat down with NHK's Los Angeles Bureau Chief Kaori Iida to talk about the new movie and what drives him to keep going at his age
.
- What inspired you to direct and star in this film?
- The film is about drugs, family, aging. What message did you want to convey?
- What movie are you the proudest of as an actor and director?
- What would 88-year-old Clint Eastwood tell a younger Clint Eastwood, 20 or 30 years old?
- Is there a role out there you really want?
- Would it be fair to say "The Mule" will not be your last movie?
Legendary actor Clint Eastwood just added another role to his repertoire: heroic life-saving octogenarian.
The chairman of the oversight committee Darrell Issa will launch non-stop probes into the executive branch, though he humbly admits that, like Clint Eastwood, he knows his boundaries.
MOVIE REVIEW | 'INVICTUS'
Final Score: Future 1, Past 0
By A. O. SCOTT
Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus,” a rousing true story of athletic triumph, is also that director’s latest exploration of revenge, the defining theme of his career.
Hollywood Chronicle
By ADA CALHOUN
Tony Curtis on Marilyn Monroe; Orson Welles's daughter on her father; a biography of Clint Eastwood; and a memoir by a celebrity biographer.
*****
How Daniel Radcliffe made the leap from star of screen to star of stage
Melvyn Bragg explains how Daniel Radcliffe's career has gone from strength to strength since Harry Potter
Email
When I first met Daniel Radcliffe to talk about a doing a South Bank Showwith him, it was in Jude Law's dressing room, after Jude had given his stunning warrior performance as Henry V. Daniel looked trashed out (night filming), excessively nervous in that martial company of master performers, and shy, as if he felt he did not belong in such a world of heavy theatre.
Illustration by David Foldvari.
The next time I met him in a dressing room was some months on in his own in New York. He had just come off stage after his performance in The Cripple of Inishmaan. The audience had given him a standing ovation. The reviews were to be magnificent. He was still nervous but no longer an outsider. In one bound, it seemed he had freed himself from a lifetime on celluloid. If he had felt lost before in the theatre he'd certainly found himself on stage as Cripple Billy. He is a serious contender on stage now, already one of the best of his generation.
How has he done it? In the SBS I wanted to look at that remarkable leap. Without Rada, without rep, without university or the new drama schools such as Eton. With just a couple of stage ventures behind him: his bold, even reckless, performance in Equus and his admired accomplishment as a song-and-dance man on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
But this is completely different. In Michael Grandage's faultless production and interpretation of Inishmaan, which transferred across the Atlantic without any compromises along the way, he shines out across the proscenium arch as brightly and commandingly as ever he did as the young wizard of Hogwarts.
When he got that role at the age of 11, "I cried", he said. And also at the first big press conference he said: "I have read the least Harry Potter of anybody in my class." That kind of self-deprecation and honesty has never left him. He worked with Gary Oldman in the films and told me how he admired Oldman and David Thewlis and, in Equus, Richard Griffiths, and how he'd bombarded them for advice. He then said he even cross-questioned Oldman about how he should behave on his first date!
On Harry Potter, he had singing lessons and action lessons but not one drama lesson. He told me: "I could have done with one, especially when I look at those first films." His honesty has no barriers; briefly we referred to his late teenage drinking jag that stopped four years ago when he was 20. Compared with the self-destruction of many of his contemporary celebrities, it was fairly normal wild oats stuff for a while. But a price he pays is that in several newspapers every small reference to it is inflated as if it was last week, to remind us all of that brief time.
He has an extreme politeness that is almost Biggin Hill in its Englishness. "Can I say shitty on your programme?" And after a deep breath he said: "My favourite John Water's quote is, if you go to someone's house and they don't have books, don't fuck them."
He soaks up information almost rabidly. When he goes into a bookshop, he always buys the books he thinks he might never come across again. We did some filming next to Brooklyn Bridge, in which he's interested, and as we strolled along the Waterside I enjoyed an enthusiastic cascade about the building of that great connection across the East River.
John Lennon once said that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ. He was hammered for saying that, but he was right. Popular culture now carries all before it. For a generation and, if we look at the way the Harry Potter films and books are constantly finding new young audiences, for generations to come, Daniel was in danger of being famously imprisoned in that part.
On our set, this was replicated in a small way when he came to do the interview in Sardi's (the Broadway theatre restaurant, floor-to-ceiling caricatures of famous actors, Radcliffe recently put on the wall) and there was a circle of people looking after him. Security, make-up, press. His kind of celebrity means he's a target for the type of enthusiasm that can ruin your day or worse – back to Lennon.
In New York, in the West Village, he's making a determined attempt to lead a normal life. He reminded me of the way Paul McCartney steered his life through global and instant recognition to determined ordinariness. He walks along the river. He watches acres of television, especially drama and films. A year or so ago, he discovered that he had no work to do (for two or three weeks!) and that he had never had a hobby. So he took up rock climbing – the sort you do inside, harnessed and up a wall, but still it looked tough enough when we filmed him doing it.
I was interested that when he talked about filming Harry Potter the first people he referred to were the crew. That, he said, was the best thing, getting to know the crew. Each person in our small crew was greeted and questions were asked about equipment. I wouldn't be surprised if, like Ron Howard, who was a famous boy star in America, he doesn't head for film direction sooner or later.
Certainly, in the first post-Potter film he did, The Woman in Black, he was not only exceptionally good and helped make that film an unexpected roaring success. He was also very keen when we talked about it to point out in detail how the director had arrived at particular shots and angles.One way that he warms up for a part is by listening to music. "I know the song I want to play if I want to get angry… I create a playlist for every part." The main song he plays for Cripple Billy is Wasting My Young Years by London Grammar.
Like many stars, he works harder than anyone around him. With Janis Price, who trained him in the details of how he should move as someone who had a particular form of cerebral palsy, he reminded me of young ballet dancers going through the pain barrier time and again as they will not let go until it is muscle-perfect.
He has a gift – Richard Burton, also "untrained", had it in abundance – of sitting still and silent and yet the centre of attention. He has complete believability.
He's a bold young man. The 17-year-old Cripple Billy is about as far away from the 17-year-old Harry Potter as could be and yet Radcliffe blazes across the stalls in the theatre every bit as much as he does in the cinema.
He has released himself from that profoundly cosseted cage of rare celebrity. When we came out of his dressing room and out of the theatre in New York, having played to the Broadway crowd who loved his performance, he was met with a street-jammed and screaming crowd of young people who wanted Harry Potter. He smiled and signed obligingly but apart from these big occasions when he is known to be available to his young public, he says, rather proudly: "When people talk to me in the street now they usually call me Daniel rather than Harry Potter."
He is totally open about the fact that he was nervous as hell after the Harry Potters came to an end. Many doubtless well-meaning friends told him that his career was finished and the best was behind him. "What did you say?" "No, it's not!" He reached back to the age of 10 when he played David Copperfield in a BBC adaptation and first worked alongside actors and started to try to act. "And I loved it! I loved it more than anyone I have ever seen love it." He still does.
Daniel Radcliffe is the subject of The South Bank Show on Sky Arts on 26 June
為擺脫「哈利·波特」，他竭盡全力
人物2013年11月12日
在丹尼爾·雷德克里夫(Daniel
Radcliffe)成為史上最著名童星之前，他還只是個孩子：獨生子，不好好睡覺、說起話來沒完沒了、愛挑食。同時，他又是那麼的可愛乖巧，令人憐愛。
在2000年哈利·波特系列電影的第一部《哈利·波特與魔法石》(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's
Stone)的試鏡素材中，10歲的他笑容燦爛，興奮心情溢於言表。他極為專註地表演，有一刻在等着說下一句時還默念了對方的台詞，但等到他開口對詞的時
候，他表演得那麼自然真誠。他長着一張完美無瑕的小男孩的臉，大大的眼睛清澈蔚藍，眨眼時偶爾一隻會比另一隻略慢些。他按照要求耐心地轉頭，先轉向一側，
再向另一側。在這段試鏡素材約四分鐘處，有人將那標誌性的圓框眼鏡戴在他臉上，這位哈利·波特、天選的小男巫，就此誕生了。視頻中有人說：「看上去真不
錯。」
在這之後的幾周，正式成為飾演哈利·波特人選的雷德克里夫，就已坐在新聞發佈會上面對滿屋子的照相機和記者了。媒體最早提給他的問題之一是：「對於成名你怎麼看？」雷德克里夫很開心：「那應該是很酷的事吧！」大家都笑了。
13年後，9月2日，雷德克里夫泛舟威尼斯，沿大運
河向里阿爾托橋疾馳。這座建於16世紀的大理石橋，是威尼斯最著名的景點之一，而此刻，這裡變成了狂熱粉絲們等待雷德克里夫到來的觀望台。雷德克里夫正從
利多小島的威尼斯電影節前往一座商場，那裡懸掛了巨篇電影橫幅，雷德克里夫此行正是為獨立製片電影《殺死汝愛》(Kill Your
Darlings)做宣傳。早在活動前一天晚上，大批觀眾即在商場外排起長隊，等待簽名，這些年輕人中大部分是女孩兒，也有少數男孩兒。雷德克里夫希望吸
引至少一部分哈利·波特粉絲來看他的新片，在片中，他飾演了另一種的青年偶像——詩人艾倫·金斯堡(Allen
Ginsberg)20歲前那段叛逆不羈的歲月。
雷德克里夫放眼望去的地方，從鄰水的窄街，到頭頂飾花的陽台，人們
熙熙攘攘，尖叫着他的名字：「丹尼爾！丹尼爾！」，邊尖叫邊飛吻。岸上，一位影片意大利方的發行商經理向雷德克里夫喊道：「上來！」天色很美，暖暖的威尼
斯光影在水面上跳躍。「我被警告不可以……對不起了！」雷德克里夫回喊。雷德克里夫，現年24歲，這樣的小心讓他有些窘迫，但這倒不是為了自身的完全，主
要是為了保護別人的勞動成果。「不好意思，我好像顯得對自己的頭型特別在乎似的，」他對我說，「但是丹（Dan，他的髮型師）給我下了明確指示不要讓他丟
臉。」
現實中的雷德克里夫比他成名電影中扮演的那個角色更活潑精神些，但
看着外面的人群，他顯得平靜專註。這麼多年以來，他已經習慣了粉絲們想要見他一面、對着他拍攝或是索要簽名的狂熱激情。如果說他有點不安，那是因為他已經
知道他要讓很多人失望了。「對傷心失落的等待更讓我緊張不安，」他說，「如果成千上萬的人為了你在凌晨4點鐘爬起來，指望着有所收穫，而你知道他們要一無
所獲的話……」
此時，船徐徐駛入一處狹窄的彎道，停靠在人群不能接近的碼頭。雷德
克里夫的保鏢薩姆(Sam)不離左右，引他上了幾級台階，進入燈光炫目、漫着香水和羊毛製品味道的商場里。在陽台上，雷德克里夫將場面盡收眼底，1500
多人擠在那條街巷。在商場里的一家精品店內，一席沙發已經擺好，幾尺之遙的隔離帶外，擠滿了要近睹雷德克里夫真容的年輕女孩兒們，而他、薩姆以及公關人員
正試圖突圍。並未提前精細打算，雷德克里夫走向隔離帶開始為粉絲們在手機、書籍、T恤上簽名，但人群很快開始沸騰失控，「Che
bello!」（意大利語，意為「太美好了！」——譯註）一個女孩兒高喊着，這時薩姆把雷德克里夫拉開了（這位簡潔幹練，身高6英尺3英寸[約1米9——
譯註]，英俊不遜電影明星的薩姆，僅同意公布他的名而隱去姓氏，他與另一位保鏢按月輪換，不離雷德克里夫左右）。
隊伍排好後，雷德克里夫站在那裡繼續簽名，活動僱傭的12名保鏢確
保女孩兒們簽完名後不要滯留。「我能擁抱你一下嗎？」一個女孩兒問。「不行，不過我很高興見到你！」雷德克里夫答道。另一個女孩兒激動得發抖。「你還好
吧？」雷德克里夫擔心地問到（「你越是表現得很親和，情況就越糟。」他後來察覺到這點，十分難過）。有一刻，他將剛簽的名勾塗掉，很快把那張紙扔掉。「那
張簽得不好。」他額上的一根青筋此刻比平時更顯眼些。
簽到500份後，已經過去大約一個小時了，雷德克里夫對着攝像機發
表了演講，對還在外面排隊等候的見不到他的粉絲們致歉，並感謝他們來這裡看他。雷德克里夫要離去的消息一傳出，還在等候的女孩兒們開始痛哭。雷德克里夫被
護送出來，薩姆緊隨其後，下了樓梯。他躲進一角，才得空獨處片刻。他點燃一隻煙。「你沒事吧？」他的公關工作人員詢問。雷德克里夫點點頭，臉色蒼白，飽受
頭痛困擾。
25分鐘的船程後，他又回到了利多小島，匆忙鑽進一輛黑色轎車。還沒坐穩，司機就轉過頭來問：「對不起，先生，我可以求您為我兒子簽個名嗎？」雷德克里夫毫無猶豫之色，說：「哦，當然可以！」司機遞給他一張餐巾布和一支筆。
自從哈利·波特系列電影拍完後，雷德克里夫就將自己
陷入了瘋狂的工作中，時常一周工作90個小時，也很少休假。他似乎決心要向世人證明，即使他不配在十歲時即得到金鑰匙而一夜成名（不只是他，這樣的榮幸誰
又當得起呢），但至少他也和任何其他人一樣在努力奮鬥，並沒有圖枉虛名。2010年，在他拍攝完成最後一部哈利·波特電影之際，他跟隨一名編舞家學習舞
蹈，以便可以在百老匯的歌舞劇《平步青雲》(How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying)中出演主角。此外，除拍攝了電影《殺死汝愛》，他還完成拍攝了其他兩部電影，一部是根據喬·希爾(Joe
Hill)的同名小說改編的電影《魔角》(Horns)，另一部是與佐伊·卡贊(Zoe Kazan)合作的浪漫輕喜劇《F打頭的那個字》(The F
Word)。今年夏天，他還在倫敦西區領銜主演了《伊尼什曼島上的瘸子》(The Cripple of
Inishmaan)。在劇演最後一個月里，他又利用白天時間拍攝了根據俄羅斯作家米哈伊爾·布爾加科夫(Mikhail
Bulgakov)作品改編的電視劇《一個年輕醫生的筆記》(A Young Doctor』s
Notebook)第二季中的年輕醫生。此劇已在英國大獲成功，本月也將在美國的藝術電視網Ovation上播出第一季。
在劇中，雷德克里夫飾演了一名年輕的、嗎啡上癮的醫生，經常出現在
年長的自己（由喬·漢姆[Jon
Hamm]扮演）身邊。故事發生在20世紀早期的俄國，情節晦澀，時而充滿喜劇化的下流和荒誕。當漢姆拿着劇本大綱找到雷德克里夫時，他看後立即答應下
來。布爾加科夫最著名的作品《大師和瑪格麗特》(The Master and
Margarita)是雷德克里夫最喜愛的小說之一。在他21歲生日時，他前往莫斯科作家的故居拜訪，作為送給自己的生日禮物。
在編劇們編寫劇本的時候，他們不太確定雷德克里夫是否會介意劇情中
針對他身高（5英尺5英寸，約1米65——譯註）的幽默片段。讓他們寬心的是，他對此欣然配合，無論是頭撞在低懸的燈上，還是讓漢姆將他抱起或是抱摔在
地，抑或是忍耐着劇中人對於他身高沒完沒了的閑言碎語。趕赴威尼斯之前三天，雷德克里夫才剛剛完成第二季的拍攝，其中包括一場他與藥劑師爭奪他偽造的嗎啡
處方的戲。兩個演員為著這張紙爭搶了一通，然後雷德克里夫就像一隻野蠻的小獸一樣，踮起腳來，對着藥劑師的手一口咬下去，並得意洋洋地搶過處方。
那最後一咬，又陰險又可笑，是雷德克里夫的即興發揮，效果甚佳。「當時我想，如果是我自己，面臨那樣的情境，特別需要那個處方，我會怎麼辦？」雷德克里夫說，「我就會咬那個衰人！」
拍完這場戲有五分鐘休息時間，他匆匆走到外頭抽一隻煙。他自己捲
煙，這是他拍《哈利·波特》時和服裝造型師學來的習慣，服裝造型師40多歲，是三個孩子的父親，是片場里雷德克里夫最親近的朋友之一。躋身英國30歲以下
最富有的年輕人之列，抽着煙的雷德克里夫神色憔悴，看上去頗像是一位可能住在閣樓上食不果腹的藝術家。他下巴凸出卻稍寬，顴骨引人注目，眼睛蔚藍動人。若
不是那漫畫般稍嫌誇張的濃密黑眉，雷德克里夫也許會更漂亮一些，而不是現在這樣依稀有些哥特氣質的英俊感覺。有的時候，尤其是疲倦時，他還是會像當年試鏡
時那樣一隻眼比另一隻眼慢地眨眼睛。「霍默·辛普森（Homer
Simpson，美國卡通片《辛普森一家》中的父親——譯註）喝醉了時就是這樣眨眼，」雷德克里夫說，「我聽了太多《辛普森一家》導演的點評了，所以知道
這個。」
雷德克里夫說，在他的表演生涯中，有時也會因自己面容特徵感到不自
在，尤其是在拍繼《哈利·波特》之後的首部作品、恐怖片《黑衣女人》(The Woman in
Black)的時候。他說，拍攝中「我徒勞地努力讓自己的表演不讓觀眾想起哈利·波特那張臉。」那他如何來定義什麼是「哈利·波特的臉」呢？「沒法定
義，」他答說，他吐出一口煙，搖搖頭，「我的臉就是哈利·波特的臉。我必須接受這個事實，因為我演了這個角色，我的臉就總會讓觀眾想到哈利·波特。如果我
為此避免一些類似的神情或舉止，唯一的結果就是失去表現力，而不會因此而擺脫哈利·波特的影子。」
在哈利·波特系列電影之外，雷德克里夫演得最成功的是那些人物外型
特質能幫他擺脫自己舊日屏幕形象的角色。18歲時，他出演了百老匯的舞台劇《戀馬狂》(Equus)，飾演了一個問題少年，有大量裸戲篇幅。在《伊尼什曼
島上的瘸子》中，他扮演了一個愛爾蘭口音的殘疾年輕人。而在《殺死汝愛》中，他的角色是一名放蕩不羈、才情滿懷，在哥倫比亞大學讀書的同性戀詩人。霍格華
茲的巫雲時而拂過影片，但那個真誠嚴肅的藍眼睛男孩兒已儼然被來自新澤西州帕特森，口若懸河、時而癲狂的猶太裔青年取而代之。
角色涉獵之廣，正反映了雷德克里夫急欲證明自己很會演戲的心情。
「我肩上有個好大的包袱，」雷德克里夫告訴我。「當你11歲就得到那樣千載難逢的良機，以後的十年一直做着任何人都夢想的工作，獲得難以置信的豐厚收入，
你就會總是懷疑每個人都在說，『他那是天上掉餡餅的運氣，他並不真的會演戲。』」而人們的這種說法也未必子虛烏有，這讓他飽受困擾。「我現在這麼想的時候
已經少得多了，」他說，「能對自己的所獲感到心安理得，確實費了很長時間和心血。」
雷德克里夫說，他是看着以窘境尷尬為素材的喜劇長大的，那是一種他
極為認同的非常英式的幽默。他得知當選哈利·波特一角的那天，他父母就獎勵他可以比平時晚些睡覺，多看一集《弗爾蒂旅館》(Fawlty
Towers)，這部喜劇恐怕是建立在（用雷德克里夫的話說）「恐懼、焦慮和尷尬「之上的巔峰之作了。
《一個年輕醫生的筆記》(A Young Doctor's
Notebook)中盡顯的就是那種令人反胃式的幽默。在一集中，他對着一個小姑娘的腿一通亂鋸，血涌飛濺，悲哀中透着一絲喜劇效果；第二季中，他追求一
位名叫娜塔莎(Natasha)的年輕美麗的女孩，手段低俗，窘迫尷尬。
那天在《醫生》的拍攝現場，雷德克里夫換上了一身小丑服，拍一場白日夢的戲，夢中的他在離場時像舞蹈家一樣做了個騰空跨步。他和給他調整麥克風的音響師閑聊，「你喜歡人行道樂隊(Pavement)嗎？」他問，「好多搞音響的人都喜歡人行道。」
「不搞那個，」音響師面無表情，「你和其他音響師合作過？」
「沒有，沒有，他們不能跟你相比，」雷德克里夫答說。他喜歡和劇組
工作人員閑聊，那份親切友情不比演戲的樂趣遜色。他低頭看看自己的服裝，笑起來。「我太愛這份工作了，」他顧自說到，「這造型又傻又另類。」他已經叫服裝
部門的小姑娘幫他拍了照片，好發給他的女友，艾琳·達克(Erin
Darke)，這是他在《殺死汝愛》片場上結識的女演員。「她看見我穿成這樣肯定迷死我了，」他說。
綵排開始，他練習那個跨步。「我能比剛才跳得更好，」他嚮導演保證。騰起半空，他將腳趾伸直成芭蕾舞小跳的姿勢。導演充滿讚賞的偷笑了一聲：羞恥又尷尬。絕了。
在威尼斯，兩天後，雷德克里夫和《殺死汝愛》的導演
約翰·克洛基達斯(John
Krokidas)在一座大廈臨時架起的面朝利多島海灘的場地上接受採訪。場外，幾百名女孩兒擠在玻璃門外，尖叫着哈利·波特的召喚咒語「飛來！飛來！」
(Accio!
Accio!)，對着他飛吻，並敲打着牆體，整棟建築都在振動。當雷德克里夫起身去向轉彎處的洗手間（這可是需要薩姆和電影節公關人員精細計劃的事宜），
女孩兒們突然跟隨他的方向湧入，飛奔着從涼台餐廳抄近穿過，驚呆了正在喝咖啡和閑逛的人們。
一天下來，雷德克里夫與至少100位記者談論了影片。這是根據金斯
伯格青年時對哥大同學呂西安·卡爾(Lucien
Carr)的熱戀改編的故事，卡爾後將他們圈中的另一個朋友殺死。雷德克里夫一如既往地彬彬有禮，對問題一一作答，待人接物頗有皇室風範——既對公眾盡職
盡責，又真心痴迷於其中。「我每天接觸那麼多人，不可能都記得，」他說，「但是，他們中的每一個都會清楚記得與我的見面。」
雷德克里夫告訴我，在他見到別人的最初十秒內，他會試圖擺脫那個寵
壞了的童星的形象。為此他時常會主動先伸出手去介紹自己：「你好，我是丹。」而很多時候他會找個理由向對方道歉。一位威尼斯的記者告訴雷德克里夫，十年前
她採訪他時，他讓她感覺自己簡直「像個老大媽」，說起時還一度落淚。雷德克里夫如坐針氈，「真對不起！那並不是我的本意，」他說，「但我知道我好像有時會
給別人那樣的感覺，實在太對不起了！」
上午採訪過半，一位歐洲的記者問道：「你的童年，算是正常嗎？」這
個其實雷德克里夫很熟悉的問題，卻不知怎麼讓他有些不知所措。「不知道，」他回答，「我也說不好我失去了什麼。不是，我……我現在也一時想不起我曾
經……」這樣稍嫌語無倫次了片刻，他好像終於想好了。「其實，我的童年非常美好！人們總是問起我是否錯過了一個真正的童年。其實那些受到過虐待的孩子們，
才是失去了童年，他們生命中的一些寶貴東西被剝奪了。」
這是個模稜兩可的回答：有太多苦楚和糾結是介於正常的童年和受虐的
童年之間的。拍攝哈利·波特系列的最後一年，飾演赫敏·格蘭傑(Hermione Granger)的艾瑪·沃特森(Emma
Watson)，告訴《娛樂周刊》拍攝的體驗十分「可怕」，並因片場上嚴苛的時間管理而大吐苦水：「別人會給我安排幾點有人來接我走，幾點可以吃飯，幾點
可以去廁所。一天中的每一秒都不在我自己的控制之下。」飾演哈利·波特摯友羅恩·韋斯萊(Ron Weasley)的演員魯伯特·格林特(Rupert
Grint)，最近在描述漫長的拍攝過程時，說其中體驗「甚是令人窒息」。
雷德克里夫卻極少背叛這個劇組。用六年半的時間導演了《哈利·波特》後四部的大衛·葉茨(David Yates)回憶說，「無論他開心、鬱悶、無所謂或者難過至極，他都懷着積極的心態，認為所有事情都是美好的，儘管當時的壓力實際上非常之大。」
雷德克里夫解釋說：「你一旦看起來情緒低落，所有人都開始擔心，會
影響整個片場。」暫時控制一下自己的情緒，總比讓上百人的劇組跟着你一起停工要容易一些，這也是他在演戲過程中學到的技能，是讓他身邊這個龐大的體系正常
運轉的必備素質。他說，「如果我感覺身體不舒服，就會是『去請個醫生來！』『哦不用，我沒事』這樣的來回對話……我不想讓別人擔心。」
至今為止，雷德克里夫仍然從不對拍攝《哈利·波特》的經歷抱怨，至
少不在公眾面前。如果抱怨，就會顯得忘恩負義，還有可能被小報媒體嘲弄：「可憐的丹啊，還有他那8000萬的財產！」（這只是個普遍的估計，雷德克里夫說
他自己也不知道擁有多少財產，財務的事都交給他的母親打理，他的母親做演員挑選的工作，也是他的財務會計）。沃特森曾將劇組比作一個她最終想要逃脫的「大
泡泡」，而雷德克里夫卻將劇組描述成令他感到「舒心安逸的地方」，那裡將他蛻變為今日的他，使他義無反顧地愛上了電影。有一次小庫珀·古丁(Cuba
Gooding
Jr.)在一檔英國脫口秀節目中開雷德克里夫的玩笑，說他那麼有錢，可以永遠不用找工作。對此雷德克里夫反駁說：「從10歲開始我每天都在工作。我除了演
戲別的什麼都不會。」隨後他補充說：「也沒有比演戲更讓我熱衷去做的事情。」
雷德克里夫的父親，艾倫·雷德克里夫(Alan
Radcliffe)，從前是一位出版經紀人，後辭職跟隨兒子出入片場，在雷德克里夫覺得心裡委屈的時候，他總是說一句俗語：「你又沒有陷在雷區里。」這
話展開說就是：「你實在太幸運了，又拿着天價片酬，從很多角度說，你最失意的時刻，都比大多數人最得意的時刻要好。」《哈利·波特》拍完後，21歲的雷德
克里夫去拍攝《黑衣女人》，這是他第一次在沒有家長陪同的情況下拍片，他的父親給他寫了一封信。雷德克里夫回憶信的內容：「在片場里，總會有人造成拍攝進
程的拖延，要爭取做到讓這個人永遠不是你。」11年來，雷德克里夫每天都是這麼做的，眾口皆碑。有什麼必要再三令五申呢？雷德克里夫說：「不懈警醒，算是
我們的座右銘。」
在拍攝《哈利·波特》的歲月里，雷德克里夫的成長經
歷曾一度是與世隔絕而又毫無戒律的。他的父親每天陪伴左右，在那個由寬敞通風的飛機機庫改造的奇幻的片場里，對他關愛有加，教導諄諄。但是在他周圍，尤其
是他十幾歲之後，劇組人員、演員們都是粗口不斷，連更衣也不避諱他，還講些紙醉金迷的故事逗他。儘管他與沃特森和格林特朝夕相處，友情不淺，但是在最後一
部拍完後也似乎很少相見。雷德克里夫最親密的朋友往往都是劇組工作人員，那些「要麼比我大很多、已經都有了孩子的，要麼就是倫敦以外的外鄉人，」他說，
「我沒有經歷過普通孩子到了十幾歲開始結交自己的朋友、擁有自己的社交圈的生活。」在片場一整天下來（包括三至五小時的教學輔導），雷德克里夫就會回到
家，在他的卧室里大放「性手槍」和「紐約娃娃」樂隊的音樂，那間童年的卧室是他青春反叛的最後根據地。周末的時間全部用來做作業；他幾乎從來沒有和同齡人
出去玩兒過，怕讓父母擔心他的安全，也怕因為自己的明星身份給朋友招來不必要的麻煩。
17歲時，雷德克里夫開始搬出來自己住，這是他很久以來一直盼望的
事。「因為我的生活經歷，我比大多數孩子成長得更快一些，」他說，「我覺得那時搬出來是理所當然的事。」而且他厭倦了總被人盯着的感覺。「我現在可以實話
實說了，因為我知道我父母已經知道了這個：我一直想抽煙。」他說，「我那時東躲西藏的簡直快成魔了。」
現在回想，他覺得自己獨立得有點早了。「因為當我有任何的不開心、
不如意時，都太容易隱瞞起來了。」在一個下午我與他在紐約西村吃午飯時，他這樣告訴我。「我那時已經演了《戀馬狂》，大獲成功，」他說，「但我還是無法擺
脫我腦子裡有七嘴八舌的聲音跟我說我會失敗。」他接著說：「我覺得好像是我腦子裡有個念頭，認為這一切都會結束，你就會被遺忘在這個漂亮的公寓里，一直住
在這兒，以後的一生都在回憶你十幾歲時的輝煌中度過。」在《哈利·波特》中飾演盧平教授(Professor
Lupin)的演員大衛·休里斯(David
Thewlis)曾說，即便是雷德克里夫小的時候，他也會「開玩笑說，他18歲將會進戒癮康復中心，27歲就會淪落去主持遊戲節目《魔法師！》。」
雷德克里夫自己搬出去不久，就開始喝酒。用他自己的話說，那可不是
聚會上應景地小飲幾杯，而是每天晚上都狂飲，喝到酒後出醜然後忘記一切。「我成了個禍害，」他說，「我成了朋友圈裡那個需要大家格外小心看着的人。」他在
附近的一些酒吧喝酒，後來開始一個人喝，因為不好意思回到之前喝得酩酊大醉的那些酒吧。2010年8月的一天，那時他21歲，從喝斷片兒的大醉中醒來，發
現自己身上有淤傷，卻想不起來過去八小時內發生的事情，他決定戒酒。那時他尚未公開談過他嗜酒程度的嚴重，擔心哪天醒來發現自己舊日輝煌的相片上了小報的
頭版。所以，2011年，他首度公開了自己的酒癮問題。多年來精心維護着哈利·波特形象的他，此刻讓那些將其視為自己童年成長的一部分的粉絲們感到陌生。
「那時，我很想讓真實內在的我和大家認識的那個我之間的距離縮小、
消失。」他告訴我。他和記者們說起過自己喝醉酒打電話給昔日女友，和嗜酒帶給他和父母關係的壓力，甚至最駭人聽聞的——他醉着酒出現在《哈利·波特》片場
的事。大衛·葉茨表示當時並不知道他的酒癮，對此雷德克里夫是相信的。在同事和許多親密的朋友面前，他小心翼翼地掩飾着自己的問題。「我這個人不喜歡讓別
人擔心，」他告訴我，「所以如果我知道自己有酒癮的問題，我怎麼會在為我擔心的人面前喝呢？」
在處處警衛和過度曝光之間的生活還是令雷德克里夫緊張。在
紐約工作期間，他與私人助理斯賓塞·索羅曼恩(Spencer
Soloman)同住在下城區的公寓里。38歲的索羅曼恩原是舞蹈演員和攝像師，在為《平步青雲》一劇輔導雷德克里夫舞蹈期間，與雷德克里夫家交往很近。
索羅曼恩和薩姆，在某些程度上像是雷德克里夫的哥哥：好玩兒，但也有責任感、辦事有條理。索羅曼恩為雷德克里夫制定日程計劃，與他父親、經紀人、公關人員
每天溝通不下兩三次。他會提醒雷德克里夫什麼時候需要為拍一組照片刮鬍子，或者在家裡翻找造型師需要雷德克里夫在某個場合穿的某件衣服。
在倫敦，雷德克里夫幾乎從不在沒有保鏢陪同的情況下出門，偶爾為之，也會低着頭顧自走路。在紐約——這個被他稱作「抬頭城市」的地方，他有時會單獨出行，穿上帽衫，戴上墨鏡（「紐約是全世界唯一一個地方，人們會跟你說他很喜歡你的戲，但並不找你要什麼，」他說道）。
雷德克里夫喜好的東西往往能發展為狂熱的嗜好：他經常一根接一根地
抽煙，猛喝健怡可樂，最近又愛上了紅牛，常常通宵達旦地看NFL.com（美國國家橄欖球聯盟——譯註），這是在演《平步青雲》時開發的對美式橄欖球的興
趣。「我差不多知道聯盟里所有開球手的名字，」他告訴我，「其實我幹嗎這麼謙虛呢，我確實熟識每個開球手的名字。」在紐約時他會錄下每一集的《危險邊緣》
（美國老牌智力競賽節目——譯註），每天睡前看。之前做過英國益智節目「QI」的嘉賓，他有着堪比百科辭典的音樂知識和百科常識，也似乎有着抖不完的笑話
包袱。
儘管很早就被卷進了成人的世界，雷德克里夫還是保留着一些青春期少年的習性。他的飲食結構很大程度上以奶酪漢堡和披薩為主，他還是像小時候那樣不好好睡覺，並且十足邋遢。一個朋友至今還為了他曾經脫下一隻襪子去擦灑了的汽水，然後又把襪子穿回去的事取笑他。
大部分時間，他的生活是圍着工作轉的。雷德克里夫說，他會和父母商
議一些事業上的選擇，但是最終由自己來拿主意，自己來定進程。「他痴迷於工作，並且做得很出色，」葉茨說，「但他也會隱瞞一些狀況。他可以做到愛惡分明，
這有時是危險的。我的擔心是，我覺得他應該停下來喘口氣，回想總結一下前路，但是在拍攝《哈利·波特》過程中乃至之後至今，他還沒有這樣做。我覺得在適當
的時候他應該停下來總結一下，這很重要。」
在威尼斯的漆黑的禮堂里，《殺死汝愛》即將放映。雷
德克里夫坐在導演約翰·克洛基達斯(John
Krokidas)身旁，等待着影片開映。「我真是不敢相信我們在威尼斯電影節，」克洛基達斯對雷德克里夫耳語道。「我知道。我也不敢相信。」雷德克里夫
悄聲回答。電影放映中，二人交頭接耳地笑着一些拍攝幕後的段子，互相讚許着對方的出色表現。
克洛基達斯40歲，在此之前只拍過兩個短片，他在五年前初次向雷德
克里夫提出了請他出演這部電影的事。他說：「我就忽然想到：這個電影講的是一個規矩恭敬、並一直以這一面示人的兒子，最終搖身一變成了藝術家、詩人和離經
叛道的豪傑。」雷德克里夫本人，他的經紀人和父母都立即被這部片子打動，「首先，這個劇本本身寫的比我們當時讀的其他本子都好太多了。」雷德克里夫說。但
他也很明白，儘管在《一個年輕醫生的筆記》和《殺死汝愛》這兩部作品中，他都飾演了對迷幻藥物有所涉足的年輕人，「當你能在你演的角色中要找自己的影子，
你演起來就容易些，可以說暢快淋漓。」
起初，雷德克里夫不得不放棄這個角色，因為當時他還有兩部《哈利·
波特》要完成。但是當克洛基達斯選好了電影的演員，將失去的影片經費重新籌齊時，雷德克里夫終於有了檔期。一位外國的電影銷售代理和克洛基達斯說，這是一
步錯棋，說「雷德克里夫手裡不拿着魔杖就根本不會演戲」。但是，雷德克里夫簽約之後，便親力親為，和克洛基達斯一樣賣力地聯繫這部電影的銷路：他在德國宣
傳《黑衣女人》期間，便親自完成了德國這一站的境外銷售。
電影開拍之後，雷德克里夫有時充當著克洛基達斯經驗豐富的導師，指
導他如何面對媒體，如何在片場建立好的風氣，如何走好事業的下一步棋。兩人成為親密的朋友，那種可以相互扶持關照的摯友。在上月多倫多電影節的首映儀式
後，克洛基達斯想要在奢華的休息區中作裝飾用的水池中游泳，以慶祝影片成功之喜。還是雷德克里夫把他叫住，提醒他這麼具有娛樂精神的表演搞不好會被人傳到
網上。「約翰，」他告訴他，「搞笑和雷人之間只有一線之隔，你現在就正好在這條線上。」克洛基達斯放棄了。
換過來說，克洛基達斯被雷德克里夫稱作「我合作過的最會調動演員的
導演」，他曾利用拍片之餘的大量時間幫助雷德克里夫尋找拿捏合適的表演方式，這是雷德克里夫現在回想，覺得他在拍《哈利·波特》時如果也能得到這樣的經歷
就好了。「有些很簡單的事情，以前從來沒有人和我坐下來交待過，」雷德克里夫和我說，「沒有人和我解釋過：你希望這場戲下來的效果是什麼？很多都是憑我們
的直覺去演的。」生性好動健談的雷德克里夫，希望他在當初演《哈利·波特》時沒有那麼刻意地壓制自己骨子裡的那種「天然的古怪氣質」。他把第六部《哈利·
波特與混血王子》(Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince)單挑出來，說自己的表演「有點從頭到尾一成不變一個腔調」。他一貫在看自己的電影時不自在。當他作客《在演員工作室里》(Inside
the Actors Studio)節目時，他曾告訴主持人詹姆斯·里普頓(James
Lipton)，他記得看自己的第一部《哈利·波特》時，還是孩子的他對此厭惡至極。
在《殺死汝愛》一片中，雷德克里夫的表演空間就比他在所有《哈利·
波特》電影中更大。這是一個不能簡單揣摩塑造的角色。雷德克里夫飾演的金斯堡既在社交中緊張不安，同時又恃才自詡，他時而浪漫至極，時而鬱鬱寡歡，時而縱
慾放蕩。在威尼斯，幾個採訪中雷德克里夫都被問及，在影片中他那場直白無諱的同性戀床戲，是否算是他試圖「在背後捅了哈利·波特一刀」。雷德克里夫很簡潔
地回答說，這只是劇情的一部分，就像是在《戀馬狂》中的裸戲對劇情至關重要一個道理。「實話說我不明白這有什麼大不了的，」雷德克里夫在一次新聞發佈會上
說，從小到大，他父母身邊一直有很多同性戀的好朋友。「人類異性戀的情愛史有多長，同性戀的情愛史就有多長，就這麼簡單。」
在威尼斯度過了馬不停蹄的兩天後，意大利方發行商「惡名影像」(Notorious Pictures)在大運河畔奢華的百夫長皇宮酒店(Centurion Palace)為電影舉辦了晚宴。到達大堂後，雷德克里夫和薩姆又從擁擠狂熱的觀眾群中擠過，去做另一場採訪，明晃晃的燈已經打到他的眼睛裡。
主辦方邀請了各色嘉賓赴隨後的晚宴：有位威尼斯王子遊走席間，還有
一些心存抱負的電影人、一位意大利有名的娛樂女郎，身型奇高。一位年輕的意大利女孩兒，將餐桌花飾上的亮粉灑在自己臉上，然後問「mago」的英文是什
麼，有人告訴她是「Wizard」。「你好，Wizard（巫師）！」她在離雷德克里夫足夠近的時候向他說。雷德克里夫一個接一個地擺姿勢拍照。
自助餐席間，一位年輕高挑、身着白色晚裝和高跟鞋的金髮女郎出現在
酒店涼台上，這裡，雷德克里夫正和薩姆、丹（他的髮型師）聊着虛擬橄欖球遊戲。這位前途喜人的女演員，開始加入了雷德克里夫的聊天中，優美地抽着香煙，關
注着他說的字字句句。這是數天來頭一個和他年齡相仿的人與他交談，看似可能是特意安排來逗雷德克里夫開心的。
隨着聊天展開，雷德克里夫越說越起勁兒。話題轉到了他在百老匯演歌
舞劇的那段時間。「有時候你刻意逗觀眾笑，就忘了接着演，」他跟她說，「然後你更想着一定將他們逗笑，你就看起來特別傻。但是你永遠不要對在乎的事失去信
心。如果你有機會演舞台劇，你應該去演。」女郎微笑着說：「你給了我靈感。」然後她離開去拿喝的東西了。
她一走開，雷德克里夫的臉頓時沒了光澤，有時他會這樣，就好像在沒了談話的電流之後，燈就變暗了。也許她是開始擔心狗仔隊偷拍，或者是自己有男朋友。而雷德克里夫看起來沮喪極了。倒不是他想要什麼艷遇，只是這樣的時刻會讓他聯想到自己最焦慮的事。
「有時候你真的會想……」他停頓了一下，「也許大家只是……忍讓着
你罷了，你知道么。」後來他和我說：「我太愛說，還愛說一些我自己感興趣的奇怪的東西，有時我會想，如果你不是個演員，不是大家都能認出的明星面孔，也許
沒人願意聽你說話，其實沒人會覺得你說的東西有趣好玩兒。」
與克洛基達斯合寫了《殺死汝愛》的奧斯汀·邦恩(Austin
Bunn)，問雷德克里夫是否還吃得消。雷德克里夫承認他之前沒想到酒店大堂里會有那麼多人，而且那盞白花花的燈會打得那麼亮，直接照着他的眼睛。意方的
發行商經理無意中聽到了他的話，馬上誠惶誠恐地道起歉來：那本來是他們可以避免的事情，他抱歉地說。雷德克里夫臉變得煞白。他對怕給別人造成不安的恐懼，
就像別人對怕讓他失望的恐懼一樣強烈。雷德克里夫馬上安慰經理：「沒事兒，沒事兒，真的，都挺好的。」然後看着我，那眼神在說：「這下你都看到了吧？」
雷德克里夫離開陽台去找他的父母，他們坐在外面一個房間的角上（他
的父母一直以來是不接受媒體採訪曝光的，這也是為什麼他們可以一直是雷德克里夫的避風港灣的原因之一）。11點半左右，大家都排起隊來，眺望着大海，等着
水上的士載他們到下一個聚會。「如果你好奇我剛才躲在角落是幹什麼，」雷德克里夫指的是他剛才走去他父母那邊躲了一會兒的事，「我終於感到有點受不了了，
需要在一個沒人會找我做這做那的地方休息一下。」
船上的人都以為他們是前往一個只有與影片相關的人參加的小型聚會，
輕輕鬆鬆、說說笑笑，還有卡拉OK。但是雷德克里夫和他的團隊到了地方才發現，意方發行商已將聚會向幾百人開放，全都是陌生人，熙熙攘攘擠在音樂震耳欲聾
的場地里。薩姆引着雷德克里夫一行人等，快步來到場地後方的演員休息室，那個角落朝向海景，有兩位迷人的曾獲國際大獎的調酒師，在這個私密的小吧台為他們
調着極佳的雞尾酒。
雷德克里夫背向大海坐了下來。他是不會請他們為他調酒的，至少不是
調帶酒精的飲料，因為近來他戒了酒。一天下來，他的臉疲憊蒼白，白到在黑夜的映襯中似乎都變得透明了，但他的藍色夾克衫和他身後的海渾然一色，他看起來就
要在這深夜褪去，好像他能一聲咒語，讓自己魔法般地消失似的。
本文作者Susan Dominus是《紐約時報雜誌》專職作者，她上一篇文章有關大學職場教育。編輯：Ilena Silverman本文最初發表於2013年10月6日。
Daniel Radcliffe’s Next Trick Is to Make Harry Potter Disappear
November 12, 2013
Before Daniel Radcliffe became the most famous
child actor in history, he was just a child: an only child, a poor
sleeper, a nonstop talker, a picky eater. He was also disarmingly sweet.
In the screen test he took at age 10, in 2000, for the first Harry
Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” he smiles
brightly, ebullient, his delight in being there apparent; he is
concentrating, concentrating so hard at one point that he mouths words
under his breath while waiting to deliver a line, but even still, when
he does finally speak, he is all natural sincerity. His face is a
flawless little-boy face, his eyes huge and cerulean blue. One eye
occasionally blinks more slowly than the other, but no matter. He turns,
compliantly, this way and that when asked. About four minutes into the
footage, someone places the iconic round glasses on him, and there he
is: Harry Potter, boy wizard, the chosen one. The adult voice on the
video says: “Those look good.”
Within weeks, Radcliffe,
officially cast as Harry Potter, was sitting at a news conference before
a roomful of cameras and reporters. One of his first questions from the
media: “How do you feel about becoming famous?” Radcliffe brightened:
“It’ll be cool!” The crowd laughed.
Thirteen years later,
on Sept. 2, Radcliffe was on a small boat in Venice, speeding along the
Grand Canal toward the Rialto Bridge. The bridge, a 16th-century stone
marvel, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Venice, but on that
day, it was merely a convenient viewing station from which wildly
waving fans could await Radcliffe’s arrival. Radcliffe was making his
way from the Lido, a small resort island that hosts the Venice Film
Festival, to a department store that had agreed to publicize, with huge
banners, the independent film, “Kill Your Darlings,” that Radcliffe was
in town to promote. Young people, mostly girls but a few boys, had been
lining up outside the store since the evening before for an
autograph-signing. Radcliffe was hoping to lure at least some of his
Harry Potter following to see his new film, in which he plays a youth
icon of a different order: the poet Allen Ginsberg, during his
rebellious late-teenage years.
Everywhere Radcliffe looked, on
tiny side streets opening out to the water, on lacy balconies overhead,
people were crammed in close, screaming his name — “Donyell! Donyell!” —
and blowing kisses. From the deck, a manager with the film’s Italian
distributor called to Radcliffe, “Come up top!” The day was beautiful,
with that warm Venetian light bouncing off the water. “I’ve been told
not to — sorry!” Radcliffe called back. Radcliffe, who is 24, looked
mortified by this precaution, which was not to protect his safety but
someone else’s labor. “I’m sorry I’m acting like I care about my hair,”
he told me, “but Dan"— his hairstylist — “gave me strict instructions
not to make him look like an ass.”
Radcliffe, in person, generally
vibrates at a faster frequency than the character that made him famous,
but looking out at the awaiting throng, he seemed quiet and focused.
After so many years, he is accustomed to the frenzied desire, the crazed
crush of fans wanting to see him, capture him on film or claim his
autograph; if he was feeling some dread, it was because he already knew
that he would be disappointing so many people. “I’m more nervous about
the anticipation of feeling bad,” he said. “When you’ve got thousands of
people who’ve gotten up at 4 in the morning and think they’re going to
get something and they won’t. . . .”
Now the boat inched its way
around a tight bend and pulled up to a dock the crowd could not access.
Radcliffe’s bodyguard, Sam, never more than an arm’s length away, led
him up some stairs and into the glaring artificial light of the
department store, which smelled of perfume and wool. From a balcony,
Radcliffe took in the view — some 1,500 people, packing the street. A
sofa had been set up in one of the in-store boutiques, and a few feet
away, behind a barrier, a phalanx of young girls pressed up against one
another to get closer to Radcliffe as he, Sam and his publicist tried to
get their bearings. In the absence of a clear plan, Radcliffe walked up
to the barricade and began signing cellphones, books and T-shirts, but
the crowd started to heave and surge — “Che bello!” cried a
girl — at which point Sam pulled Radcliffe away. (Laconic, 6 foot 3 and
movie-star handsome, Sam — who agreed to be identified by only his first
name — alternates monthly with another bodyguard; one or the other
accompanies Radcliffe everywhere.)
Once an orderly line formed,
Radcliffe stood and signed autographs, as one of the 12 security guards
hired for the event pushed the girls along to keep things moving. “Can I
get a hug?” one girl asked. “No, but it’s lovely meeting you!”
Radcliffe said. Another young woman was shaking with emotion. “Are you
O.K.?” he nervously asked. (“It only makes it worse if you’re nice,” he
later observed, miserably.) At one point, he scrawled an autograph on a
piece of paper, then threw it away quickly. “That one’s no good.” A vein
in his forehead had become more visible than usual.
Once he hit the 500 mark, after
about an hour, Radcliffe spoke to a video camera, apologizing to all
those who were still in line outside and would not get to meet him and
thanking them for coming. As someone broke the news to the waiting girls
that Radcliffe was leaving, wails broke out; Radcliffe was ushered,
with Sam just behind him, back down the stairwell. He ducked around a
corner, finally alone. He lighted a cigarette. “Are you all right?” his
publicist asked. Radcliffe, pale, prone to headaches, nodded.
A 25-minute boat ride later, he
was back at the Lido and being rushed into a black car. He had barely
settled in when the driver turned to him: “I’m so sorry, sir, can I ask
you to sign for my sons?” Radcliffe did not hesitate. “Oh, yes, of
course!” he said, and the driver passed him a napkin and a pen.
Since the Potter movies
ended, Radcliffe has thrown himself into a frenzy of projects, at times
working 90-hour weeks and rarely taking vacations. He seems intent on
proving that he is, if not worthy of the golden ticket he received at
age 10 (because who could be), at least working as hard as anyone could
to show he won’t squander his fame. In 2010, while he was finishing the
last Potter films, he trained with a choreographer and learned how to
dance so he could star in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying” on Broadway. In addition to “Kill Your Darlings,” he has
finished two other movies: “Horns,” an adaptation of the Joe Hill novel,
and “The F Word,” a romantic comedy with Zoe Kazan. This summer, he
played the lead role in “The Cripple of Inishmaan” in London’s West End.
During the last month of the play’s run, he filmed, during the day, the
title role in the second season of a television series called “A Young
Doctor’s Notebook,” based on a book by the Russian writer Mikhail
Bulgakov; already a success on British television, the first season
began airing in the United States this month on Ovation, an arts
television network.
In the show, Radcliffe plays a
young, morphine-addicted doctor who often appears alongside an older
version of himself, played by Jon Hamm. The material, set in
early-20th-century Russia, is obscure, at times comically obscene and
absurdist. When Hamm approached Radcliffe about the project, showing him
an outline of the script, he said yes right away. “The Master and
Margarita,” Bulgakov’s best-known book, is one of Radcliffe’s favorite
novels — on his 21st birthday, he treated himself to a trip to Moscow to
visit the author’s onetime home.
As the writers started working
on the script, they were not sure whether Radcliffe would feel
comfortable with physical comedy or humor that played on his height
(he’s 5 foot 5). To their relief, he embraced it, banging his head on
low-hanging lights, allowing Hamm to pick him up or body-slam him,
enduring a steady stream of asides about his size. Three days before
leaving for Venice, Radcliffe was finishing the last scenes for the
second season, including one in which he was wrestling with a pharmacist
over a forged prescription for morphine. The two actors tugged at the
piece of paper for a moment, and then Radcliffe, like a small, feral
animal, stood on his toes and sank his teeth into the pharmacist’s hand,
pulling the paper away in triumph.
That final touch with the
teeth, dark and antic, was Radcliffe’s improvisation. It went over well.
“That was like: What if I was in a situation, and I really needed it?”
Radcliffe said. “I’d bite the sucker.”
He had five minutes after the
scene to take a break and quickly walked outside to smoke a cigarette;
he rolls them, a habit he picked up from the Harry Potter wardrobe
dresser, a father of three now in his 40s, whom Radcliffe considers one
of his best friends from the days on the set. Among the wealthiest men
under 30 in his country, Radcliffe, particularly when he smokes, has the
pallid, slightly starved look of an artist who might live in a garret.
He has a pointy chin but wide, dramatic cheekbones and those
surprisingly blue eyes. If it weren’t for the eyebrows, which are
caricatures of eyebrows, exceptionally dark and heavy, Radcliffe might
be pretty rather than what he is, which is handsome in a vaguely gothic
way. Occasionally, and more so when he is tired, he still shows the same
slow, one-eyed blink he did on his screen test. “It’s what Homer
Simpson’s eyes do when he’s drunk,” Radcliffe said. “I listen to too
many directors’ commentaries from ‘The Simpsons,’ that’s why I know
that.”
At times in his professional
life, Radcliffe said, he has felt self-conscious about other
idiosyncrasies of his face, particularly when he was acting in his first
post-Potter movie, a horror film called the “The Woman in Black.”
During filming, he said, “I was struggling in vain to not come close to
making a face that would make people think of Harry.” And how would he
characterize a Harry face? “There isn’t,” he said, exhaling smoke and
shaking his head. “It’s just my face. I have to accept the fact that my
face is going to remind people of Harry because I played that character.
If I try to avoid being expressive in that same way, all I’ll do is
stop being expressive, and I won’t be any farther away from that
character.”
Radcliffe has been most
successful, outside the Potter franchise, in roles in which the
physicality of the character helps him over the hurdle of his past
on-camera self. When he was 18, he starred in “Equus” on Broadway,
playing a disturbed adolescent, a role that required extensive nudity.
He performed with an Irish accent and portrayed a disabled young man in
“The Cripple of Inishmaan.” In “Kill Your Darlings,” he plays a gay,
sexually active aspiring poet attending Columbia University. A touch of
Hogwarts hovers over the film, but the earnest, solemn, blue-eyed
schoolboy has been replaced by a hyperverbal, occasionally manic Jewish
adolescent from Paterson, N.J.
The range of roles reflects
Radcliffe’s ambition and his desire to prove, as quickly as he can, that
he can genuinely act. “I have a massive chip on my shoulder,” he told
me. “When you fall into something at age 11 and get paid incredible
amounts of money for your entire teenage years for doing a job anyone
would want, there is a part of you that thinks everybody is just saying,
‘He got there because he fell into it; he’s not really an actor.’ ” The
possibility that those people might be right plagued him as well. “I
feel it less nowadays,” he said. “It has taken a long time to feel like
I’ve earned the place that I’m at.”
Radcliffe says he grew up on
the comedy of embarrassment, a particularly British form of humor with
which he identifies closely. The day he learned he got the part of Harry
Potter, his parents rewarded him by letting him stay up late and watch
an extra episode of “Fawlty Towers,” perhaps the apex of a genre built,
as Radcliffe says, “on fear and anxiety and awkwardness.”
“A Young Doctor’s Notebook”
revels in that queasy-making humor. In one episode, he hacks away at a
young girl’s leg with a saw as blood spurts tragicomically, and in the
second season he humiliates himself with his sleazy wooing of a
beautiful young woman named Natasha.
On the “Doctor” set that day,
Radcliffe changed into a Harlequin-style clown suit for a daydream
sequence that called for him to leap, dancerlike, as he exited the
scene. He chatted with the sound technician fixing his microphone. “You
like Pavement?” he said. “A lot of sound guys like Pavement.”
“Don’t do that,” the technician deadpanned. “You’ve worked with other sound guys?”
“No, no, none of them even
compare to you,” Radcliffe said. He generally seemed to enjoy the small
talk and the camaraderie among the crew as much as the acting. He looked
down at his costume and laughed. “I love this job,” he said to no one
in particular. “It’s so stupid and weird.” He had already asked the
young woman in wardrobe to take a photograph of him in the costume, so
he could send it to his girlfriend, Erin Darke, an actress he met on the
set of “Kill Your Darlings.” “She is going to find me sooo attractive
in this,” he said.
When rehearsal kicked in, he
practiced the leap. “I can do it better than that,” he promised the
director. Midair, he pointed his toes into a classic jeté. The director
sniggered appreciatively: shame, embarrassment. It was perfect.
In Venice, two
days later, Radcliffe and the director of “Kill Your Darlings,” John
Krokidas, were doing interviews from a temporary structure on a plaza
overlooking the beach on the Lido. Outside, hundreds of girls pressed
against the glass doors, screaming the appropriate summoning spell from
Harry Potter — ‘'Accio! Accio!” — blowing kisses and pounding
so hard on the walls that the building vibrated. When Radcliffe needed
to use the bathroom around the corner, an event that required precision
planning between Sam and the film festival’s publicists, the quick trip
triggered a stampede as the girls followed, racing to take a shortcut
through a terrace restaurant, startling the coffee-drinkers and flaneurs in their midst.
Over the course of the day,
Radcliffe spoke to easily 100 reporters about the film, which is based
on the story of Ginsberg’s youthful infatuation with Lucien Carr, a
fellow Columbia student who eventually murders another friend in their
circle. Radcliffe’s manners were unfailingly polite as he fielded
questions; he moves through the world like a royal who not only embraces
his responsibility to his public but also obsesses about it. “I meet
hundreds of people, and I’m not going to remember them,” he said. “But
every single one of them will remember their interaction with me.”
Radcliffe told me he tries to
dispel the image of a spoiled child star within the first 10 seconds of
meeting someone; sometimes he does that by extending his hand and
introducing himself — “Hi, I’m Dan” — but as often as not, he finds
something, anything, for which he can apologize. At one point, a TV
reporter in Venice teared up while telling Radcliffe, whom she
interviewed 10 years before, that he made her feel “like an old aunt.”
Radcliffe looked stricken. “I’m so sorry, it’s not my intention,” he
said, “but I know I have that effect on people, I’m terribly sorry.”
About midway through the
morning, a European reporter asked, “Your childhood — was it normal?”
For some reason, the question, a familiar one to Radcliffe, seemed to
throw him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m missing. No,
I’ve . . . I can’t sit around thinking of all the things I’ve. . . .” He
drifted for a moment, then something seemed to kick into gear. “Because
actually, no, it was an amazing childhood! People always ask if I
missed out on childhood — actually, kids who are abused, that’s a missed
childhood, those kids have stuff taken away.”
It was a nonanswer — a lot of
anguish and ambivalence lies between a normal childhood and an abused
one. In the last year of filming Harry Potter, Emma Watson, who played
Hermione Granger, told Entertainment Weekly magazine that she was
finding the experience “horrible” and complained bitterly about the
tightly controlled routine on set: “I get told what time I get picked
up, I get told what time I can eat, when I have time to go to the
bathroom. Every single second of my day is not in my power.” Rupert
Grint, who played Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s best friend, recently
described the long, drawn-out experience of appearing in the films as
“quite suffocating.”
Radcliffe, however, rarely
betrayed any strain. “If he was feeling good, bad, indifferent or
terrible,” says David Yates, who directed the last four Potter films
over six and a half years, “he carried the perception that everything
was lovely and great, even though the pressures were really intense.”
As Radcliffe explained it: “The
second you seem down, everyone’s very concerned. It affects the set.”
Temporarily suppressing a mood was easier than bringing a crew of
hundreds of people to a halt — it was just another skill he learned on
the job, part of keeping the vast machinery around him moving smoothly.
“If I ever was feeling ill,” he said, “it was: ‘Get a doctor on set!’
‘No, I’m fine.’ . . . That feeling makes me not want to worry people.”
Radcliffe still doesn’t
complain about his experience on Potter, at least not publicly; to do so
would be to appear ungrateful and to risk being mocked by the tabloid
press: Poor Dan, with his $80 million fortune! (That’s one
common estimate; Radcliffe says that he doesn’t actually know how much
money he has and leaves financial matters to his mother, who is a
casting agent, and his accountant.) Watson has called the set a “bubble”
from which she eventually wanted out; Radcliffe, though, describes it
as his comfort zone, a place where he evolved into who he is, where he
learned to love working in film, for better or for worse. Cuba Gooding
Jr., on a British talk show, once teased Radcliffe about being so rich
he never had to work again. “I’ve worked every day since I was 10,”
Radcliffe protested. “I don’t know how to do anything else.” He added, a
moment, later, “There is nothing else I’d rather be doing.”
Radcliffe’s father, Alan
Radcliffe, a former literary agent who left his job to chaperon his son
on the set, had a phrase he used if Radcliffe ever did appear put upon:
“You’re not down in the mines.” It was shorthand for: You are incredibly
lucky, and you are being well compensated, and your worst day, in many
ways, is better than most people’s best. After Potter was over and
Radcliffe, then 21, went to shoot “The Woman in Black,” the first time
he wouldn’t be accompanied by a parent, his father wrote him a letter.
“On a film set there’s always going to be somebody who’s going to be
causing a delay,” Radcliffe recalls the letter saying. “Try and make
sure it’s never you.” For 11 years, Radcliffe had done just that, every
day, by all accounts; why spell it out? “Constant vigilance,” Radcliffe
said, “is kind of our motto.”
Radcliffe’s upbringing during
the Potter years was at once cloistered and uncensored. His father was
on the set every day, providing an unusual amount of oversight in the
strange, charmed halls of the drafty, converted aircraft hangar where
the movies were shot. But all around him, especially as he became a
teenager, the crew and cast were swearing, changing in front of him and
regaling him with tales of boozy revels. Although he and Watson and
Grint shared an intense experience and are friendly enough, they have
barely seen one another since the last film. Radcliffe’s closest friends
were always among the crew, people who “were either much older than me
and had kids or lived outside of London,” he said. “I didn’t have that
normal teenage period when you build up your friends in your area and
you have a social circle.” After what was usually a long day on set
(which included three to five hours of tutoring), Radcliffe went home
and found anarchy where he could: he played the Sex Pistols and the New
York Dolls, his childhood bedroom a refuge of rebellion. The weekends
were for homework; he almost never went out with peers, self-conscious
about having to reassure his parents about his safety or worried about
imposing the hassles of celebrity on his friends.
At 17, Radcliffe moved out on
his own, something he had been wanting to do for a long time. “Because
of the life I’ve had, I’d grown up quicker than most people,” he said.
“I felt like I was entitled.” He was also tired of being watched. “I can
be honest about this now, because I know my parents know — but I wanted
to smoke,” he said. “I was hiding it like a fiend.”
Looking back, he thinks he was
too young to have been on his own. “Because when I was unhappy in any
way, it made it too easy for me to hide it,” he told me one afternoon
over lunch in the New York’s West Village. “I’d done ‘Equus,’ which had
gone so well,” he said, “but I still couldn’t get rid of that committee
of voices in my head saying that you’re going to fail.” He continued: “I
think there was a part in the back of my head that was going: This is
all going to end. And you’re going to be left in this nice apartment.
Just living here. And being reminded of what you did in your teenage
years for the rest of your life.” David Thewlis, who played Professor
Lupin in the Potter films, once said that even when Radcliffe was young
he would “joke that he’d be in rehab by the time he was 18, and by 27
he’d be hosting a game show called ‘It’s Wizards!’ ”
Not long after Radcliffe moved
out on his own, he started drinking. By his own description, this was
not casual drinking at parties, but every-night drinking, heavy
drinking, drinking to the point of making a scene and then blacking out.
“I became a nuisance,” he has said. “I became the person in the group
who has to be looked after.” He drank in local bars and eventually
alone, because he was too embarrassed to go back to the bars where he
had been so drunk on nights past. In August 2010, when he was 21, after
awakening from a blackout, bruised and unable to account for the
previous eight hours, he decided to stop drinking. He hadn’t talked
publicly about the extent of his problem and was worried that he would
rise one morning to find photos of his past exploits plastered on the
front page of a tabloid. So in 2011, he decided to speak openly about
his drinking. Having spent so many years protecting the image of Harry
Potter, he felt unknown by the same public that considered him an
intimate part of their childhoods.
“I wanted to close the gap
between the real me, what was going on in me, and the person that people
perceived,” he told me. He talked to reporters about drunk-dialing old
girlfriends, the strain drinking put on his relationship with his
parents and even, most sensationally, the times he showed up, still
drunk, on the set of “Harry Potter.” David Yates said he was not aware
of Radcliffe’s drinking, which Radcliffe believes is true; he had
carefully hidden his problem from colleagues and many close friends.
“I’m not somebody who likes worrying people,” he told me. “So if I know
I’m a worrying drinker, would I ever drink in front of people that I
would worry?”
The tension between
a protected and overexposed life still exists for Radcliffe. When he’s
working in New York, he shares his apartment downtown with his personal
assistant, Spencer Soloman, a 38-year-old former dancer and camera man,
who became close with Radcliffe’s family when he was teaching the actor
to dance for “How to Succeed.” Soloman and Sam function, in some ways,
like older brothers: fun, but responsible and organized. Soloman plans
Radcliffe’s schedule and talks to his father, agents and publicists two
or three times a day; he might tell Radcliffe when he needs to shave for
a photo shoot or search their apartment for a garment that his stylist
wants him to wear for some occasion.
In London, Radcliffe almost
never leaves his apartment without a bodyguard, and when he does, he
keeps his head down. In New York, which he calls his one “head-up city,”
he occasionally goes out solo, in a hoodie and sunglasses. (“New York
is the only place in the world where people might say they like your
work but they don’t ask you for anything,” he says.)
Radcliffe’s pleasures can veer
into compulsions: he often chain-smokes cigarettes, pounds Diet Coke,
recently kicked a Red Bull addiction and spends hours, into the early
morning, on NFL.com, pursuing an obsession with American football he
cultivated during “How to Succeed.” “I probably know every starting
player’s name in the league,” he told me. “Actually, I don’t know why
I’m being modest, I definitely know every starting player.” He records
episodes of “Jeopardy!” when he’s in New York and watches them before he
goes to sleep. A former guest on a brainy British quiz show called
“QI,” he has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and trivia and a
seemingly inexhaustible catalog of jokes.
Thrown into an adult world
early on, Radcliffe nonetheless still clings to some adolescent habits.
He subsists on a diet based largely on cheeseburgers and pizza, is the
same poor sleeper he was as a child and is an inveterate slob. One
friend still teases him about the time he took off a sock to mop up some
soda, then put the sock back on.
Mostly his life revolves around
work. Radcliffe says he confers with his parents about his career
options, but he ultimately makes his own decisions and sets the pace.
“He’s addicted to the whole work thing, and he does it brilliantly,”
Yates says. “But he does hide things. He can also be very clear about
what he likes and doesn’t like, but there is a danger. My fear is that
at some point he’s got to stop and reflect and take a breath, and the
fact that he hasn’t stopped in all the time since and during Potter — I
think it’s important that he does that at some point.”
Inside the dark auditorium
in Venice, moments before the screening of “Kill Your Darlings,”
Radcliffe sat beside John Krokidas, the film’s director, and waited. “I
can’t believe we’re at the Venice Film Festival,” Krokidas whispered to
Radcliffe. “I know, me, too,” Radcliffe whispered back. As the film ran,
the two bent their heads together, laughing at inside jokes,
complimenting each other on their work.
Krokidas, 40, who made only two
short films before this one, first approached Radcliffe to do the movie
five years ago. “A thought came to me,” he said. “This was a movie
about a dutiful son who has only shown the world one side and by the end
is an artist and a poet and a rebel.” Radcliffe, his agent and his
parents were all immediately taken by the project: “First of all, it’s
hard to overstate how much better the script was than everything else we
were reading,” Radcliffe said. It was not lost on him, however, that in
both “A Young Doctor’s Notebook” and “Kill Your Darlings,” he plays a
young person experimenting with mind-altering substances: “When you play
characters in whom you recognize parts of yourself, it makes it easier,
and it’s kind of cathartic.”
At first, Radcliffe had to let
the part go, because he still had two more Harry Potter films to finish.
By the time Krokidas cast the movie, lost financing and was putting
financing back together again, Radcliffe was finally available. A
foreign sales agent told Krokidas it was a bad move, that “Radcliffe
couldn’t open a movie without a wand in his hand.” But once Radcliffe
signed on, he worked as hard as Krokidas to sell the movie: he
personally closed the deal for foreign sales in Germany while he was
there promoting “The Woman in Black.”
When filming started, Radcliffe
sometimes functioned like a seasoned mentor to Krokidas, counseling him
on how to handle the press, establish the tone on the set or think
about his next career move. The two have become close friends, the kind
who feel comfortable keeping each other in line. After a screening at
the Toronto Film Festival last month, when Krokidas decided to celebrate
with a dip in a shallow decorative pool at a high-end lounge, it was
Radcliffe who let him know that the amusing stunt could end up on the
Internet. “John,” he told him, “there’s a fine line between funny and
weird, and you are right on that line.” Krokidas got out.
In turn, Krokidas, whom
Radcliffe has called “the best director of actors I have ever worked
with,” spent many hours with Radcliffe off the set, helping him find an
acting method that felt right, an experience, in retrospect, he wishes
he had during the Potter movies. “There are simple things that no one
sat me down and talked to me about,” Radcliffe told me. “No one had ever
explained to me: What do you want out of the scene? It was very much
left to our instincts.” Radcliffe, naturally verbal and kinetic, wishes
he had not tried so hard in the Potter films to suppress his own
“natural weirdness.” He singled out his performance in the sixth film,
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” as “a little one-note the
whole way through.” He has always felt uncomfortable seeing himself on
film. When he appeared on “Inside the Actors Studio,” he told James
Lipton that he recalls watching the first film, as a child, with
“loathing.”
In “Kill Your Darlings,”
Radcliffe displays more range than he did in the Potter films, with a
role that defies easy characterization. Radcliffe’s Ginsberg is both
socially insecure and sure of his genius; he is, by turns, deeply
romantic and sullen and sexual. In Venice, several interviewers asked
Radcliffe if he was trying to “put a knife in the back” of Harry Potter
by doing an explicit gay sex scene. But Radcliffe simply said it was a
part of the story, just as being nude in “Equus” was essential. “I
honestly don’t know what the big deal is,” Radcliffe, whose parents had
many close gay friends when he was growing up, said in a news
conference. “People have been having gay sex for as long as they’ve been
having straight sex, period.”
After two grueling days
in Venice, Notorious Pictures, the Italian film distributor, hosted a
dinner for the film at the Centurion Palace, a lavish hotel on the Grand
Canal. Arriving in the lobby, Radcliffe and Sam pushed their way
through a hot, close crowd so he could do yet another interview, as a
bright light shone in his eyes.
The hosts had invited a mixed
crowd to the dinner that followed: there was a Venetian prince wandering
around and some aspiring filmmakers and a woman known for being an
Italian showgirl, hugely tall and pneumatic. A young Italian woman, who
had sprinkled some of the glitter from a centerpiece onto her face,
asked what the English word for “mago” was, and someone
answered, “Wizard.” “Hello, wizard,” she said to Radcliffe when she got
close enough. Radcliffe posed for photos, again and again.
During the buffet dinner, a
very tall, blond young woman in a white evening gown and heels
materialized on the hotel terrace, where Radcliffe was talking fantasy
football with Sam and Dan, his hairstylist. The woman, an aspiring
actress, started engaging in conversation with Radcliffe, smoking a
cigarette beautifully and hanging on his every word. She was the first
person his age he had spoken to in days, and it seemed possible that she
had been brought there expressly for his enjoyment.
Radcliffe was growing more and
more animated as they talked. The conversation turned to his stint doing
musical theater on Broadway. “Sometimes you’re chasing a laugh, and
you’re forgetting to act,” he told her, “and then you strain to get the
laugh, and you look like a fool. But you need to never lose faith in
what you care about — if you ever get the chance to do live theater, you
should.” The young woman said, with a smile, “You’re inspiring me now.”
Then she left to get a drink.
As she exited, Radcliffe’s face
seemed to lose color, as it sometimes does, like a light that dims
without the current of conversation. Maybe she had started to worry
about paparazzi or had a boyfriend. But Radcliffe looked crestfallen. It
was not that he was trying to score but that this kind of moment played
into his worst fears.
“You do sometimes think. . . .”
He paused. “Maybe everyone’s just . . . putting up with you, you know,”
he told me later. “I talk a lot, and I talk a lot about weird stuff
that interests me, and sometimes I’m like, Maybe if you weren’t an actor
and someone with a recognizable face, maybe no one would be listening
to you, actually, and nobody would find what you have to say interesting
or funny.”
Austin Bunn, who wrote “Kill
Your Darlings” with Krokidas, asked Radcliffe how he was holding up. He
hadn’t quite been expecting that crowd in the hotel lobby, Radcliffe
admitted, or that incredibly bright, white light in his eyes. The
manager from the Italian distributor, overhearing his comment, leapt to
his feet and started apologizing profusely — that was something they
could have fixed, he said. Radcliffe blanched. He is as alarmed by other
people’s distress as they are alarmed by the fear that they have
disappointed him. Radcliffe quickly reassured the manager — “No, no, it
was totally fine, really, it was fine"— then looked at me pointedly: Do you see what happens?
Radcliffe left the terrace and
found his parents, who were sitting in a corner of an exterior room.
(His parents have always made themselves off-limits to the media, which
is one reason they continue to be a refuge for Radcliffe.) Around 11:30,
everyone lined up and gazed at the sea, waiting for the water taxi to
take them to the next event. “In case you were wondering what that
convocation in the corner was about,” Radcliffe said, referring to his
time with his parents, “I did finally hit a point at which I needed to
be somewhere where no one was asking me for anything.”
Everyone on the boat thought
they were headed to a small party for people connected to the film:
there would be relaxing, there would be laughing, there would be
karaoke. But Radcliffe and his group arrived to find that the Italian
distributor had opened the party to hundreds of people, none of them
familiar, all packed into the space, which was loud with music. Sam led
Radcliffe and his entourage, at high speed as usual, to a kind of
greenroom in the very back, a corner that at least was on the sea and
where two charming bartenders, winners of an international competition
to make the best drink, worked an intimate bar.
Radcliffe sat with his back to
the water. He would not avail himself of their services, at least not
for anything alcoholic, because he’s not drinking these days. His face,
worn out and wan by the end of the day, was so pale it looked almost
translucent against the darkness, but his blue jacket was merging with
the color of the sea behind him, and he seemed to fade into the evening
as if, on command, he could make himself magically disappear.
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