Daniel Radcliffe is ‘proud’ of his Harry Potter role

Amidst starring in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway, Daniel Radcliffe stopped by MTV to talk about the final Harry Potter movie, his next spooky film, how he spends his free time and growing up Harry Potter.

“It’s been the making of me. I’m immensely proud to be a part of it and it’s given me some of the happiest years of my life,” Radcliffe said about his iconic role as the boy who lived. And how does Daniel Radcliffe feel about the final film? “I am excited to see it, I think it will be very good. It just seems like eons ago that I finished it, so it’s bizarre.”

When told that people had ended up in tears after seeing a sneak peek of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Radcliffe replied, “Good! It’s the last one, for God’s sake! If we don’t get ‘em now, we don’t get another chance.”

However, with the series coming to an end soon, Radcliffe is happy that more fans are recognizing him as Dan lately instead of his onscreen persona. “The encouraging thing is more and more people do know my real name now which is nice. That is a nice thing to have people call you Dan rather than Harry, it’s a pleasure,” Daniel Radcliffe said.

As far as moving on after Potter, Radcliffe has a busy year ahead and feels it’s important to stay in the public eye. “If I had been taking some time off and not doing stuff I think the temptation in terms of the media and the public, to a certain extent, is [that] if you don’t hear from a child star for a while, you can kind of condemn them to the been-and-gone pile. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.” With his jam-packed schedule, Daniel said the “next 12 months are going to be quite telling.”

What does Daniel Radcliffe do in his downtime? Besides reading and exploring the Big Apple, he enjoys dabbling with pen and paper. “I’m convinced I should be writing but the problem is I don’t have any ideas. So that’s the quandary I find myself in…I’d love to get into writing scripts. Just basically the first thing I complete will be the thing I’m drawn to most.”

Concerning his next project, The Woman in Black, Radcliffe is looking forward to the chilling, ghost story which is due out early next year. “The story is so compelling…It’s gonna be terrifying.” Daniel plays a young lawyer in the film based on the haunting novel by Susan Hill. “At the test screening they had, apparently people were leaping out of their seats terrified. So I think it’s going to be a really, really good movie,” Radcliffe said. “I’m actually very excited about seeing this.”

Fans can currently catch Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. And of course Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 arrives on the big screen July 15.

Don’t miss Daniel Radcliffe chatting with MTV about learning how to dance!

Check out this clip of Daniel Radcliffe on stage, in full singing and dancing mode!