I’ve done 273 screen captures for the first episode of Miracle Workers: Dark Ages. You can view them in the gallery.
TELEVISION SHOWS > 2018 | MIRACLE WORKERS > SEASON 2 > CAPTURES > EPISODE 001 | GRADUATION
“Dark Ages” is the second installment of the “Miracle Workers” anthology series, created by Simon Rich (FXX’s “Man Seeking Woman”) and both starring Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi and Geraldine Viswanathan. But while Season 1 was based on Rich’s 2013 book “What in God’s Name” and followed low-level angels in a corporate version of heaven, Season 2 is set in Medieval times, as the bumbling Chauncley grapples with inheriting the throne from his bloodthirsty father (Peter Serafinowicz).
Radcliffe, 30, says “Dark Ages” is “Game of Thrones” meets “The Simpsons,” and strikes a unique tone of being “sweet and charming, but also very profane and stupid and funny.” He chats with USA TODAY about the show, and life after “Harry Potter.”
Question: What are some similarities between your characters Craig (in Season 1) and Chauncley (in Season 2)?
Daniel Radcliffe: They’re both socially inept but come from completely different places. Craig’s social ineptitude is caused by him being overly analytical and self-aware, whereas Chauncley has no self-awareness. He starts as someone who’s psychotically stupid, and his journey is one of starting to become a good person by the end. It’s a very different role for me – I’ve never done anything this broad before. It’s very hard to find a grounded and subtle way of playing someone who dances with ducks.
Q: Given the medieval setting, did you have to learn how to swordfight or ride horses?
Radcliffe: I got out of that, thankfully. When we were first doing the show, I was like, “I’m definitely going to have to ride.” I can get on a horse and go from point A to point B, but I don’t love it. I also didn’t have to do any sort of fighting, because my character’s a coward. Really, the only thing I had to do was called “duck training,” where I’d stand there for 10 minutes, and the (animal handlers) would be like, “Pick up the duck. Now put it down again. Cool, need anything else from us?”
Q: Aside from the cast, are there any connective threads between the stories in seasons 1 and 2?
Radcliffe: We discovered some as we were going along, but I don’t even know if they’re intentional. It’s really little things, like a scene where me and Geraldine’s character end up spreading a map out on a table and poring over it and working out a plan, which is an echo of something from the first season, (which was) thematically about finding the bravery to be yourself. And the second has a more parental theme: How do we love our parents, and how do we move away from (them)? But done in the craziest, most heightened context.
Q: You’ve appeared in Broadway shows, independent films and now TV series in the decade since “Harry Potter.” What was the most difficult part of making that transition?
Radcliffe: There’s a lovely thing, which is that I’m open to some weirder stuff. Well, maybe other people say it’s weird, but I just think it’s fun. And weird begets weird, so then you become known for responding to those scripts and get sent (them). What I had to learn is that I’m in a position very few actors are in, which is you have autonomy over your career. And because “Potter” has been very good to me financially, you can pick and choose some (projects) purely because it makes you happy.
There was a stage where I thought I should be doing a certain type of film, and it was a very valuable lesson to learn that, “Oh, I shouldn’t necessarily do something because it’s the right thing to do on paper.” I was very worried at the end of “Potter,” because I didn’t know what the future was going to be or what my life was like without that thing. But if you told me then that in 10 years, I’d have made films like “Horns” and “Kill Your Darlings” and “Guns Akimbo” and “Swiss Army Man,” I’d have bitten your hand off. “Potter” was this amazing start, and then I had to step back and say, “OK, what do you want your career to be?”
Q: I spoke to your “Harry Potter” co-star Rupert Grint, who said he recently re-watched “Sorcerer’s Stone” (released in 2001, when Radcliffe was just 11 years old). Have you seen any of the movies lately?
Radcliffe: Yeah, I was at the gym on Thanksgiving and it was just on on a loop on some channel. I came into the gym and there was a little bit of recognition at the door, but it settled down and I was like, “OK, cool, cool.” And then I get on the treadmill and look up, and it’s (expletive) me in the third film (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”)! It’s funny. I don’t know if I can watch them, just because I don’t know if I’m ready for that opioid-level hit of nostalgia. It would be too much of a mixture of sadness and happiness and embarrassment. But I will watch them again at some point. It’s definitely not something I seek out, though.
Source: USAToday
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you signed on to the first season of Miracle Workers, there was always the plan to make it an anthology series. How did Simon decide on this Dark Ages setting and story line?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Simon is somebody who is a bit of a history nerd, and Simon’s brain looked at a lot of the potential situations in that world and just saw something he could make very, very funny. There is some stuff in the show that is really obviously heightened, that is very crazy, but it’s not that far off from the kind of stuff that was going on in medieval Europe. We have a goat on trial, and that is actually something that is completely true and something that happened with semi-regularity in medieval Europe. There really were animals put on trial for things, so it’s quite rich pickings for comedy.
The first season played with our common perceptions of the afterlife and God, and this is certainly a different take on the Middle Ages than we’re used to seeing — less Game of Thrones, more medieval sitcom. What do you most enjoy about the expectations or world this is subverting?
As you say, it complicates people’s notions of what these archetypes of certain characters would be, and Simon finds the means to subvert them. My character, for instance, is essentially a stupid prince in the way you might expect one to exist, but then we gradually watch him become more human as the series goes on. With how beautiful the sets are and how well lit it is, it has the look of Game of Thrones, but the jokes and the format of The Simpsons.
It’s so fun to see this repertory company of actors shaking things up, taking on very different roles from season 1. Did you draw straws for them? How did that all shake out?
No, not at all. My one request, or the thing I was most excited about, was that we would actually all be on set together for this series, because certain structural things in the first [season] — I never had scenes with Jon Bass, for example, because he was on earth and I was in heaven. I was very excited to actually have the cast all combined for this series this time around, and get to do stuff with them. It was me, Steve, and Geraldine’s characters that I remember Simon talking about first. The joy of working with somebody like Simon is that I don’t know if there’s anybody else that I know well enough that I could just trust and be like, “Whatever you write for the next few years, I will be happy to perform.” I am in such awe of his ability. I’ve been in the writers’ room with him and watched him be forensic and amazing about a story in a way that I have admiration for. I feel very safe in his hands. I would pretty much do whatever he writes — I have to be careful saying that.
Your character has… I guess we could call it an affinity for ducks. What is one surprising thing you learned from working with live ducks?
[Laughs] It’s unfortunate to say that the one thing I learned about them is that they smell worse than you’d expect, but there was a lot of duck s— happening when you’ve got multiple ducks on set, and it is a very distinctive smell. Karan Soni will confirm that once you’ve smelt it, it’s a smell you can identify anywhere, and as soon as they’re around you’re like, “Oh, the ducks are here.” They’re quite hard to train. Originally it was going to be geese, and they were like, “No, geese are a nightmare. That’s not going to happen.” We had three ducks that were the main ducks — they were called in British film terminology the hero ducks — and they would be brought to set. They were very good. You would set them in a certain spot and they would kind of do what they were told, and then you would get the other ducks on set and it’d be like, “Okay, let’s see what happens.”
It sounds like a bit of a clusterduck.
[Laughs] Yes, you could say that. I can’t believe I never thought of that in 10 weeks of filming!
How would you describe Chauncley, and in particular his relationship with his father? What journey can we expect this season?
At the beginning, Chauncley is intensely lonely and psychotically stupid. He’s an individual who has no empathy or self-awareness whatsoever, and the journey throughout — he meets Alexandra, Geraldine’s character, and she begins to open him up to a new world and between her and Karan, he gradually learns he does not have to follow in his tyrannical father’s footsteps. [She] helps him become more human and nice toward the end.
You and Geraldine have an easy rapport and natural chemistry. Is that story one of friendship or her making you more politically aware?
That friendship grows and maybe blossoms into something else, but Chauncley’s obviously not very good at that. He doesn’t really know what to do with these new feelings. But it is also about her just making him realize that there is life outside of the castle, and there is life outside of the line of murderous tyrants that he comes from. He does not necessarily have to follow in their footsteps. I would say that she learns stuff from me, but I don’t think she does — I think I just kind of help out at key moments, but it’s very rare that I’m speaking out as a character. Chauncley does not have a lot of speeches, bless him.
This is the first project you’ve done since Harry Potter where you got to have that experience of coming back together as a group to tell a story with deepened relationships and familiarity with one other — but now with the added element of taking on a new set of characters. If you had the luxury of doing that on Potter, which character would you have wanted to jump into?
Oh God, I guess Lupin and Sirius Black are both incredibly cool characters. Though I have to say, it’s also [because] I probably am biased a little because I love both the actors [David Thewlis and Gary Oldman] that played them. But yeah, I’d probably have to say one of those two.
You’ve been in rehearsals for Endgame on the West End, and I saw Alan Cumming’s photo with your director’s notes saying, “Actors fried.” You’ve done classic musical theater, Martin McDonagh, Peter Shaffer. Where does Beckett rank in difficulty level for you, in terms of language and approach?
Right up there at the very top. It’s tough, and I’m so glad I’m subjected to it with Alan and with [director] Richard Jones. It’s an amazing team that I’m getting to work with. It’s really tricky material, and it requires a lot of precision. Hopefully, it will come out right. But you’re definitely talking to me at a period of rehearsals where I’m like, “Oh my God.” It really is the hardest thing I’ve done.
Prince Chauncley is a bit more song-and-dance than warmonger. Do you want to do another musical, and if so do you have one in particular you want to do?
I would love to do another musical, but you have to genuinely commit for a long time. That’s not the case with plays, normally. You generally have to commit for a lot longer, and then you have to really love it. You have to absolutely know going in. You have to love doing that show, and be able to love it for a year. So I definitely want to do a musical again, but I’m not going to do it until I’m sure of that.
Check out the NEW TRAILER and see it in theaters March 6.
Escape From Pretoria is the true story of Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber), young, white South Africans branded “terrorists”, and imprisoned in 1978 for working covert operations for Nelson Mandela’s banned ANC. Incarcerated in Pretoria Maximum Security Prison, they decide to send the apartheid regime a clear message and escape! With breath-taking ingenuity, meticulous surveillance, and wooden keys crafted for 10 steel doors, they make a bid for freedom…Beyond a thrilling will-they-won’t-they-escape, this is the story of an oppressed majority’s struggle, and two ordinary men who stood-up to be counted in the pursuit of equality for all.
Dan was on Live with Kelly this week. I posted a few clips from the show on our Miracle Workers facebook group. On the show he talked about Miracle Workers, Endgame and Potter. Those clips can be seen below also hoping to post the full interview soon. The clip they played with the interview was from Miracle Workers it was a clip with the bard and his playlist. Picture of Kelly and Ryan with Dan is below.
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Sorry about the lack of updates been sick with the flu, but we have new scans for you from TV and Satellite Week and Radio Times, more rehearsal pics from Endgame and a few graphic edits contributed by members which I will be posting soon.
THEATRE > 2020 | ENDGAME > REHEARSALS
MAGAZINES > TV & SATELLITE WEEK
MAGAZINES > RADIO TIMES
We have 9 new stills from Guns Akimbo also a new international trailer is online you can view that down below.
MOVIES > 2020 | GUNS AKIMBO > STILLS
Dan was interviewed during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), on September 2019.
New stills from Miracle Workers and also a new video from the making of. You can view the video down below.
TELEVISION SHOWS > 2018 | MIRACLE WORKERS > SEASON 2 > STILLS
Daniel Radcliffe & Alan Cumming join Lauren to talk about their new production of Endgame at the Old Vic in London. You can listen to the interview at the BBC Website.
INTERVIEWS > 2020 > JANUARY 15 | LAUREN LAVERNE
New photos from the Old VIc of Daniel’s new play Endgame. Endgame premieres January 27.
THEATRE > 2020 | ENDGAME > REHEARSALS
First trailer for Guns Akimbo has been released along with a new poster from New Zealand.
MOVIES > 2020 | GUNS AKIMBO > POSTERS
New sneak peek of Miracle Workers: Dark Ages. Also today was the Warnermedia TCA for Miracle Workers. Dan was on satellite due to being in London for his play Endgame that will start in a couple of weeks on January 27. And 1 new still was added to the gallery.
APPEARANCES > 2020 > JANUARY 15 | WARNERMEDIA WINTER TCA
TELEVISION SHOWS > 2018 | MIRACLE WORKERS > SEASON 2 > STILLS
Dan appeared on Graham Norton to promote his new play with Alan Cumming. Endgame previews January 27. You can join our facebook group for more information.
Two More clips from the Graham Norton show can be viewed on our playlist.
New Photos from the Graham Norton show have been posted in the gallery.
INTERVIEWS > 2020 > JANUARY 10 | GRAHAM NORTON
