Daniel Radcliffe has been sober since 2010—and the actor says his work in the Harry Potter film franchise may have had a lot to do with his drinking problem.
“A lot of drinking that happened towards the end of Potter and for a little bit after it finished, it was panic, a little bit not knowing what to do next—not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober,” he says in a recent BBC interview cited by the Independent and ETOnline.
Image: Daniel Radcliffe
He adds that this was one of the first times he started to understand how fame would impact his daily life: “If I went out and if I got drunk, I’d suddenly be aware of there being interest in that because it’s not just a drunk guy. It’s ‘Oh, Harry Potter’s getting drunk in the bar.’ And that carries its own kind of interest for people. Also a slightly mocking interest because it is inherently funny for people.”
The 30-year-old says he did not enjoy that, but at first, “the way of dealing with that is to just to drink more, or get more drunk. So I did a lot of that for a few years.”
As for whether there’s a direct connection between Potter and his drinking, he notes that’s a big question. “There are many questions in my life where you can say ‘Is this thing, thing X, the way it is because it’s in you to be that way or is it because you got famous and were in this slightly crazy situation?’ That’s not just the sense with my drinking, it’s a few things where you go ‘I wonder if that’s because of Potter or I would have been that way anyway?'”
He adds, per the Metro, “I will never know. It (dependency on drink) runs in my family, generations back. Definitely not my mum and dad, I hasten to add.”
