It’s been awhile since Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 24 today, has played the Boy Who Lived in the well known Harry Potter series, and ever since he has been determined to break out of his wizardly type-casting. Although Radcliffe can never expect to fully disassociate himself from the movies based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling novels, it appears he does intend to prove his skills beyond the films he starred in beginning when he was just eleven years old. So far, he seems to be succeeding.

Following the release of the final Harry Potter film, Daniel immediately jumped into his next film, The Woman in Black (2012). The Woman in Black, which had modest success in theaters, was a dark turn from a naive wizard; Radcliffe played a young lawyer who happens upon a child-murdering ghost.

First a lawyer, then a doctor: after Woman in Black, Radcliffe returned to his home country in order to take part in the short U.K.-based television series, A Young Doctor’s Notebook in which he plays a doctor placed in Muryovo, Russia at the dawn of the 1917 Russian Revolution. The series did well, becoming Sky Arts channel’s most watched show with 800,000 viewers and, just yesterday, was confirmed for a second season. Radcliffe is mesmerizing in the role, often conversing with his older self and questioning the crude and gory medical practices he must perform. U.S. fans of Daniel won’t miss out – the four-episode first season is set to premiere this summer on Ovation.

Radcliffe has another film set to release later this year as well. In Kill Your Darlings, Daniel will play poet Allen Ginsberg, who finds himself entangled in a murder during his college years, along with his friends and fellow Beat generation writers William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. The film has already created quite the buzz, particularly since Daniel is expected to partake in controversial gay scenes, following in the footsteps of greats such as Heath Ledger. Expect Kill Your Darlings to be worth the ten dollar movie ticket; the film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and has garnered rave reviews from critics.

Radcliffe has also been spotted on set of the movie Horns, expected to release later this year. The movie is yet another with a gloomy plot: Daniel plays Ig Perrish, a young man accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend who wakes up one morning to discover he has horns, which empower him with supernatural abilities.

Radcliffe has been busy on stage as well, appearing in plays such as Equus (2007), where he appeared nude, the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2011) and most recently playing a crippled orphan determined to escape poverty The Cripple of Inishmaan, which opened in June. Daniel had initially received criticism for his appearance in Equus, where he played a mentally unstable boy who sexualizes horses. Critics feared the role would destroy Radcliffe’s family-friendly image, but Radcliffe still forged ahead, choosing continually riskier roles as each year passed, and fears about his public image and career suffering from his choices have proved unfounded.

It appears that in the relatively short time since the Harry Potter series ended, Daniel has almost completely reconstructed his reputation as an actor. Choosing serious, and often difficult-to-play roles has resulted in the emergence of an actor that will be around for quite some time. Although the young wizard Harry Potter will never truly be out of our hearts or minds, Radcliffe should have little fear of being typecast or confined by the previous popular role.

Still, don’t expect to bring children along to see a Radcliffe movie anytime soon; word on the street is that his next role choice might be Igor in a film based on the horror story Frankenstein. If Daniel’s recent trend is any evidence, the film is unlikely to be PG13.

About the Author: Spencer Blohm is a freelance entertainment and culture blogger for D2TV. He spends his free time contemplating which house he feels the sorting hat would have placed him in at Hogwarts. He lives and works in Chicago and is currently seeking applications for a house elf.

Yesterday Kill Your Darlings had a preview at the Giffoni Film Festival. The website Notorious Pictures has released Dan’s video message he said to fans yesterday. You can watch it down below.

Today Dan will be on BBC Radio 1 on The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw and Scott Mills

A few photos have been posted so be sure to visit our gallery for it. 🙂

Scott Mills Podcast Download: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/mills
Youtube Video for Nick Grimshaw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbR_S8wgBrY

Hey everyone! Katie Leung, who played Harry’s love interest in The Goblet of Fire, will be starring in the new short film Sun Never Sets. The short is currently in pre-production and filmmakers Daniel and Ateh Jewel are raising funds through Kickstarter. They are encouraging everyone to contribute and if you decide to participate you can receive props from the set, a copy of the script and/or tickets to a cast and crew screening. They are aiming to raise £25,000 by 1 September 2013 and production is planned to begin this autumn. I’ve included a synopsis below and links to the Kickstarter and Facebook pages:

Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/81903521/sun-never-sets-sci-fi-film-set-in-the-near-future?ref=live

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sun-Never-Sets/164270243752988

Synopsis:

Sun Never Sets is set in the near future where China has become the undisputed world power and the West is in disarray. Now, the tired and hungry people of Europe are fleeing to the great cities of China to seek a new life as economic migrants. Against this backdrop, a Chinese-born Englishman named HEDGES has decided to turn his back on the tide of history by taking his adopted daughter KATIE to a small abandoned island downstream from Shanghai, where his British ancestors used to trade to China from in the nineteenth century.

He has rebooted the abandoned island and staffed it with illegal English immigrants to China, creating his own world as if the British Empire had never fallen. The island is off the grid and has no electricity or running water. The small community living under Hedges use gas lamps, so it’s as if they are living a British version of an Amish village. One day a wealthy English family, who have started a successful new life in Shanghai, crash their boat on the shores of the island. Hedges and Katie are forced to take them into their community. The arrival of the family sparks off something in Katie – who has always wondered what life might be like away from the island. She spends her evenings gazing at the neon haze of Shanghai, which she can see through her grimy bedroom window. Katie can see how at ease the family are with life in Shanghai; they speak fluent Mandarin and are fully accepted into Chinese society, and this leads her to question everything Hedges has told her about the modern world. This brings her into conflict with Hedges, especially when the young son of the family, TOM, offers to take her back to Shanghai with them. In the climax of the film, Katie is pressured to make life-changing choices, which ultimately reveal the dark history of the British Empire in China and Hedges’s ancestors involvement in the Opium Wars.

We’ve been asked to help with a fundraiser for a Sun Never Sets. Daniel Jewel, who is directing a new short film starring Katie Leung (Cho Chang) this autumn.

Here’s what the film is about:

Sun Never Sets is set in the near future where China has become the undisputed world power and the West is in disarray. Now, the tired and hungry people of Europe are fleeing to the great cities of China to seek a new life as economic migrants. Against this backdrop, a Chinese-born Englishman named HEDGES has decided to turn his back on the tide of history by taking his adopted daughter KATIE to a small abandoned island downstream from Shanghai, where his British ancestors used to trade to China from in the nineteenth century.

He has rebooted the abandoned island and staffed it with illegal English immigrants to China, creating his own world as if the British Empire had never fallen. The island is off the grid and has no electricity or running water. The small community living under Hedges use gas lamps, so it’s as if they are living a British version of an Amish village. One day a wealthy English family, who have started a successful new life in Shanghai, crash their boat on the shores of the island. Hedges and Katie are forced to take them into their community. The arrival of the family sparks off something in Katie – who has always wondered what life might be like away from the island. She spends her evenings gazing at the neon haze of Shanghai, which she can see through her grimy bedroom window. Katie can see how at ease the family are with life in Shanghai; they speak fluent Mandarin and are fully accepted into Chinese society, and this leads her to question everything Hedges has told her about the modern world. This brings her into conflict with Hedges, especially when the young son of the family, TOM, offers to take her back to Shanghai with them. In the climax of the film, Katie is pressured to make life-changing choices, which ultimately reveal the dark history of the British Empire in China and Hedges’s ancestors involvement in the Opium Wars.

To read more about the fundraiser go here: kickstarter.com

Thanks to a friend of mine in Italy she told me the following info on KYD.

Yesterday, in Riccione  there was a Film Festival, and they presented the KYD Trailer (I saw you have a screencap on Facebook). Here’s everything that was explained by Italian Distributor Notorious Pictures

KYD will be out in Italy with the title “Giovani Ribelli” on September the 26th, three weeks before the USA. It will also been screened at the Giffoni Film Festival over the summer AND more importantly … they can’t confirm it 100 %, but they basically hinted a Venice Film Festival Premiere. I SO hope Dan will be able to attend that Festival, Venice is HUGE and here we talk about it a lot, as you can imagine. Best. Wake. Up. Ever.

The Notorius Pictures representative is quoted in the article as saying: “It’ll be at an important Film Festival between the end of August and the beginning of September …” which for us equals Venice, but it’s early for confirmation.