Daniel Radcliffe has been famous for most of his life. He was only 11 when he beat out thousands for the titular role in the Harry Potter films. Being the face of a global franchise brought him no small amount of media attention. In fact, when the news broke that Radcliffe had been selected to portray the boy who lived, paparazzi and news outlets camped outside his home. Interest in Radcliffe only continued in the decade that he filmed and promoted the massively popular films.
Daniel Radcliffe has found ways to cope with how famous he is
Though being famous was sometimes challenging for Radcliffe to contend with, he found ways to manage it. For example, he has learned not to Google himself, so he’s not bombarded with tons of information (real and fabricated) about himself. The December Boys actor has also found ways to outsmart the paparazzi over the course of his career. He once wore the same outfit repeatedly, so any pictures of him would look the same as the day before and therefore lose value.
The ‘Harry Potter’ alum feels people in New York are cooler about celebrities
Of course, being famous also means that Radcliffe has no small amount of fans. However, he feels grateful that Potterheads are generally kind and happy to see him. Still, the actor does take pleasure in moments when nobody bothers him, and he can have some semblance of normalcy. He managed to find that normalcy when he was living in New York while starring in the play Equus on Broadway.
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While living in New York, Radcliffe was thrilled that he could walk around the streets of the Big Apple and nobody would bother him. Even when people recognized him, they largely left him alone. “The other thing I love about New York is that people in New York are kind of much cooler,” Radcliffe explained in an interview with Collider. Continuing on, the actor shared an anecdote about asking for directions after he got lost in Central Park.
Radcliffe and other famous celebrities feel comfortable in New York
“I said, ‘Excuse me, do you know how to get back to West 69th or something?’” Radcliffe recalled. “And this guy just said, ‘Oh, you’re doing Equus here, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah! That’s really cool that you know that.’ Like, you know, I don’t know. Everyone’s so aware of the actors and stuff in New York that everyone’s just really, really kind of cool about it and laid back. So I think everywhere else in the world you get reactions. But New York people are pretty kind of chilled about the whole thing.”
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Radcliffe certainly isn’t the only famous person to express similar sentiments about New York. In fact, plenty of people in entertainment have chosen the city that never sleeps as their home base because of the normalcy they find there. Most recently, Selena Gomez shared that she loved the city because she could be herself there. She has found a routine in the city, and people largely leave her alone. It seems that many New Yorkers are chill about celebrities, even if they see them out in the wild.
