LONDON: Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has come a long way in the past six years. But even the crew who have filmed him for so long were apprehensive about his first on-screen kiss. I shouldn t be watching this, said producer David Heyman, describing his thoughts during the kiss scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, due out this month. Still only 17, Daniel Alan Radcliffe has already starred in four, and soon to be five, blockbuster films, a well-received play in London s West End, and another, non-Potter movie due out in September. Born July 23, 1989 to Alan Radcliffe and Marcia Gresham, Radcliffe harboured ambitions of an acting career from an early age, but his parents - a literary agent and casting director respectively - were not so keen, so his initial experience in the entertainment industry was limited to school plays. In 1999, however, he was cast to play the young David Copperfield in the BBC s adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, and from there his film prospects began to brighten. The following year, with auditions ongoing for the first Potter film - Harry Potter and the Philosopher s Stone - Heyman bumped into Radcliffe s parents, who were family friends, at a play Radcliffe was acting in. Having been impressed by Radcliffe, Heyman asked the boy s father if young Daniel could audition for the part of Harry Potter, a part Radcliffe eventually won, with the release of the first Potter film in 2001. That same year, he also played the role of the son of a principal character in The Tailor of Panama, a central America-based thriller by British director John Boorman. He has acted in a total of five Potter films, the most recent of which premieres Tuesday, and has ridden the wave of Potter-mania in that time. JK Rowling s seven-part Harry Potter series of novels, the latest of which is to be released July 21, have sold 325 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 64 languages. The films, meanwhile, have grossed 3.5 billion dollars (2.6 billion euros) worldwide. Despite being best known for his role in the Potter films, Radcliffe has also won critical acclaim for playing Alan Strang, a disturbed teenager fixated on horses who develops an intense relationship with his psychiatrist, the lead role in the West End play Equus. He is also set to appear in December Boys, a movie due out in September about four orphans growing up in Australia in the 1960s. Radcliffe is under contract to appear in the final two installments of the series -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Gallows -- with the final two films due out in 2008 and 2009 respectively. His wealth is already estimated at 17 million pounds (25.2 million euros, 34.1 million dollars), according to the Sunday Times s 2007 rich list. He has said that playing the role of Harry Potter is an immense privilege, adding: I feel a huge sense of loyalty to the character of Harry and the fans who have supported these films over the years. Despite the fame and fortune, though, he has continued his studies, starting by hiring a private tutor to help him through the first film. For his A-levels, he is studying Religion and Philosophy, English Literature and History. He has admitted to being a big fan of his co-star in the Potter films, Gary Oldman, and told reporters in a press conference last month that Oldman is his role model. Whether or not he ever manages to rival Oldman s cinematic career, Radcliffe has become a movie superstar of his own, and is growing up before the public s very eyes.
