Fans of Harry Potter will be surprised to know that Daniel Radcliffe had turned to alcohol after the break out success of his film franchise in which he portrays the young wizard. In a recent candid interaction on Off Camera With Sam Jones, British actor Radcliffe admitted that he found comfort in drinking to deal with the success that followed in the Harry Potter series.
Daniel claimed that he turned to alcohol to cope up with the massive amount of attention he received, with his every move heavily scrutinized after Harry Potter released. "In my case, the quickest way of forgetting about the fact that you were being watched was to get very drunk," he said.
The vicious cycle of consumption took a heavy toll on him as he added, "Then as you get very drunk, you become aware that, oh, people are watching more now because now I'm getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more."
Sharing the plight of child actors, Radcliffe, now 29, also said, "There’s no blueprint for starting young and working stuff out. That's like when people have a go at Justin Bieber and drag-racing cars. I'm like, yeah, but ya know... stuff could be super-crazy for him right now. You don't quite know how overwhelmed it's possible to get."
Radcliffe admitted that he was only able to pull himself out of the darkness of alcohol abuse with the help of close friends. "It took a few years and it took a couple of attempts," he said. "Ultimately, it was my own decision.... I woke up one morning after a night going, this is probably not good."
Talking about his role in Harry Potter series, he said, "Even at the lowest point, I still loved my job so much and I loved going to set and there was never a day where my own (expletive) would affect how I was on set."
"There was never a point where I was like 'I wished this didn't happen to me. I wish I wasn't Harry Potter'. Like, that just didn't happen."