Daniel Radcliffe hasn’t ruled out playing Harry Potter again, but won’t be picking up his old wand for at least a decade.
The 27-year-old star played author J.K. Rowling’s schoolboy wizard in eight films from 2001 to 2011, but has since moved on with his acting career.
Since his departure the Harry Potter franchise has continued to go from strength to strength, with a spin-off movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, set for release in November and a new two-part stage play depicting Harry as a middle-aged father of three wowing London theater audiences.
Daniel admits he might consider playing Harry in a film version of the play, titled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, but only if he’s had a long enough break from the role by the time any movie adaptation makes it into production.
“It is a tricky one,” he told British newspaper The Sun. “You never want to close a door on anything, especially something that has been so good to me.
“At the moment I am definitely not at a stage where I would feel comfortable going back to it, who knows in 10 and 20 years if I would feel differently about that. And I think I have still got a little while for me to be age appropriate for this (the Cursed Child’s) Harry.”
The play, which opened at the British capital’s Palace Theater in June, currently features 37-year-old actor Jamie Parker as Harry, meaning that if Daniel does wait a decade he would match its current star’s age.
Last month, bosses at Warner Bros. reportedly filed a trademark application for a Cursed Child film, but any plans to bring the play to the screen are believed to be a long way off.
Earlier this year Rowling played down speculation about a movie version, replying to a fan who wrote on Twitter that they’d heard a film was coming: “You heard wrong, I’m afraid. #CursedChild is a play. #FantasticBeasts will be 3 movies, though!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">You heard wrong, I'm afraid. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CursedChild?src=hash">#CursedChild</a> is a play. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FantasticBeasts?src=hash">#FantasticBeasts</a> will be 3 movies, though! <a href="https://t.co/7tvw4rolcR">https://t.co/7tvw4rolcR</a></p>— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/704432297269977088">February 29, 2016</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
After this year’s Fantastic Beasts film, which stars Eddie Redmayne as magical creatures expert Newt Scamander, sequels are planned for 2018 and 2020. No other plans for additional Harry Potter movie projects have yet been announced.
