There are probably very few people in the United States who don’t know Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, but the actor’s own three-year-old son is one of them.
“Right now, I’m just his dad and he has no idea what I do,” Radcliffe explained on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “First of all, you know your job is a little bit b——- if you can’t explain it to a kid. He understands what policemen and doctors and firemen do, but actor, you’re like, ‘Well we help tell stories, like the stories in your books, you know, but we sort of act them out.’ That’s sort of what we’ve landed on as an explanation.”
However, after seeing numerous commercials for “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” while watching the Olympics, Radcliffe’s son is starting to have a better idea of his dad’s job. “I had left the room, and apparently I popped up in the corner of the screen, and he just went, ‘Dada?’ with like, a tone of, ‘I’m not crazy right?’” the sitcom star explained.
Radcliffe’s son wasn’t the only child having this experience. “A bunch of the kids in our building, that was there first time seeing me [on TV] … Our friend’s daughter, who’s like five, was like, ‘I saw you on TV, what were you doing there?’ It was great, it was very funny,” he recalled.
The Tony-winner isn’t itching to show his son the original “Harry Potter” films anytime soon. “I think there’s a world where my son watches the HBO show of ‘Harry Potter’ now instead of the films and I’m also sort of happy with that,” he said. “As much as I can do to just be his very uncool, unimpressive dad for as long as I can is the goal.”
Follow us on Instagram @WeArePauseRewind for all your pop culture obsessions.