Daniel Radcliffe, the actor most famous for portraying Harry Potter onscreen, was James Lipton’s guest this week on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”- and it was a programming choice which made me groan. I like it when this show focuses on true luminaries in the field who can speak from the rich experience borne of a long and varied career – people like Jack Lemmon or Paul Newman or Meryl Streep.
But Daniel Radcliffe? That’s like giving a Lifetime Achievement Award to the kid from the Home Alone movies. I have enjoyed Radcliffe as Harry Potter a lot but still couldn’t warm up to the idea of him joining the pantheon of illustrious performers who have graced this particular stage.
But I was wrong. Radcliffe was incredibly articulate and had all kinds of perceptive things to say about his craft – and it was also refreshing to be hearing from an actor very much at the outset of what promises to be a long and fine career.
But my favorite moment of the conversation didn’t have all that much to do with the world of acting – but rather with the concept of gratitude. It was basically Lipton’s last question of the evening: What did your father have to say to you about mine shafts? And Radcliffe, with a smile, replied that whenever he found himself getting crabby about a long day of filming or jaded or perturbed with some facet of his life as an actor, all his dad had to say to snap him out of his snit was “at least you’re not down a mine shaft.” It was a reference to the inescapable fact that there are some truly terrible ways to make a living – and working in the mines would be one of them. It’s all young Radcliffe had to hear in order to be reminded that his life, for all its occasional headaches, was a life for which he should be incredibly and eternally grateful. And he should be grateful – and I suspect that he is – that he had wise parents who clearly knew how to keep his young feet on the ground even in the midst of the swirling vortex of extraordinary fame and fortune. All young superstars should be so blessed.