Like magic, Radcliffe is transformed

Daniel Radcliffe is moving on.

Looking to prove he's got more than Harry Potter in his bones, he's taken on demanding stage roles (Broadway's "Equus," the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying").

Now his first post-Potter film, "The Woman in Black," premieres Friday. It's a dark, brooding horror tale with Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps, a widowed lawyer with a young son, who finds himself in a creepy town seeing . . . wait . . . is that . . . a ghost?

We sat down recently and chatted with Radcliffe.

I had one of those great cinema moments watching your film. Tension was rising, and a woman suddenly uttered, "Oh, my God!" We all burst out laughing, feeling the same way.

I love when a fright collapses into laughter. For half a second, everyone is unselfconscious. I watched that at the London premiere. I know where all the scares come now . . . so I don't jump -- I just pick someone in the audience to watch.

Your director said you really pushed yourself as an actor.

When I first played Harry, I just said the lines as 11-year-old Dan would. There was a lot of me in Harry. This was the first time I came to a character and started from scratch. I'm not under the illusion that everybody will go, "Oh, he's not Harry Potter anymore." That'll take . . . a few movies.

What did you learn from "How to Succeed"?

So much. The main thing is not to shy away from my own weirdness -- my physicality is quite staccato, and I've always been embarrassed about it, but I realized that, if nothing else, it's funny. So let it out. I also learned I had stamina. It's all very well the first week, with 1,400 people screaming your name, but can you do it on a Wednesday matinee with 500 people who don't find you funny? That's the test.

Why all the challenges? You needn't work again. I don't mean to be impertinent, but that's the reality.

It's interesting -- everybody looks at the money. Nobody looks at the fact that I've worked every day for the last 10 years. I don't know how to do anything else. I get restless with downtime. I push myself so I'll get better.

Do you follow the Super Bowl?

Absolutely, I'll be backing the Giants. I'm hoping for a Victor Cruz touchdown.

Excellent. I've one question from my friend Emily, who's 11. She lives south of London, near Arundel.

By Arundel, you say. Oh, very nice.

She wondered what it's like to depart from all these people you've worked with for so long. The Potter clan.

It's more the crew I miss. They were with me every day. Em [Watson] and Rupert [Grint] weren't there half as much. So the people I became really close to were the crew. So, yeah, in answer to Emily's question, I do miss . . . a lot of them. We did something very special in those films -- not just in terms of the films we made, but how we made them. It was lovely.