LOS ANGELES — What’s J.K. Rowling about to announce
with the mysterious “Pottermore” project? Daniel Radcliffe says he’s in
the dark on the topic, and, yes, he’s quite ready to say goodbye to the
boy wizard at this point anyway.
“I know nothing about that whatsoever,” Radcliffe
said of the cryptic new website that is meant to stir interest in the
June 23 announcement of some new endeavor. “I’m sure that Jo will be
writing a lot more in the coming years. I’m sure she has a lot more in
her than we’ve read and a lot more stories to tell.”
And he added, with a bit of a chuckle: “As long as they don’t involve Harry, I’m quite happy to buy them.”
The was a great stir of interest in the muggle world
in recent days with news coverage of the website, which is so far just a
holding page with two owls, the word “Pottermore” and the signature of
Rowling, the author who mesmerized readers the world over with the
magical tales of an orphaned boy wizard, his friends and the dark forces
aligned against them.
The bookshelf chronicles of Harry Potter reached a
climax in 2007 with the seventh and reportedly final book, “Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows,” and the Hollywood feature-film franchise
draws to a close this summer with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Part 2,” the eighth film, which opens in the U.S. and U.K. on July 15.
There’s plenty of speculation about the nature of
“Pottermore,” but the most likely might be an MMORPG, an online
fan-community experience or a hybrid of both. Rowling’s spokeswoman has
stated that the project is “not a new book” and is not “directly
related” to the impending “Potter” film.
That’s just fine with Radcliffe, now in New York,
where he is starring in a revival of Frank Loesser’s 1961 musical, “How
to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” for the rest of the year.
The reviews in the big city have ranged from sunny to sour, but —
reached by phone on Friday a few hours before show time — the young star
sounded more concerned about stage stamina than his standing with
critics. “We’re doing well,” he said, “and now I just have to keep it up
until January.”
Radcliffe has possessed — and been possessed by — the
role of Potter for half his life, and right now he’s experiencing an
intense jumble of emotions. “It is bizarre; we’ve been talking about it
for so long, and now it’s finally here.”
And yes, for the record, he’s absolutely ready to
hang up the Hogwarts robe for good. But what about that notion of a
later movie based on some new Rowling-penned adventure? Does Radcliffe
harbor any secret wish to reconnect with his signature role sometime
down the road?
“Not particularly. I think that would be a bit odd,”
said the actor, who celebrates his 22nd birthday the week after the
eighth film opens. “I’d be very skeptical about that. First of all, I
don’t think that she will” write another Potter installment, “and second
of all, oh, I don’t know, the idea of going back to something after 10
or 20 years? At that point, I will have worked 20 years to establish a
career outside of it, and at that point to go back to it would feel a
little self-defeating.”
Perhaps, but Radcliffe is already wise enough to know
that you can never really say never. There may be some magic moment
when someone offers him a magic wand and the perfect script. “I could
feel completely different at that time, but at this moment, it feels
like it would be strange and not the way it would or should go.”
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