Q&A: Daniel Radcliffe on Space Travel, Russian Literature, and Napoleon

Harry Potter might have worn the glasses, but the truth is it’s Daniel Radcliffe who’s a bit of a nerd. A self-professed history buff, lover (and sometimes writer) of poetry, collector of books, and trivia enthusiast who makes quizzes for fun, Radcliffe is our kind of guy. We sat down with the star—whose new film, Horns, is out on Halloween—to find out what language he’s learning, the book he thinks everyone should read, and which historical figure he’d play on Drunk History. Plus, scroll down to see the awesome special edition cover that’s going only to subscribers (click here to get it!).

You once said that school was hard for you but you learned to love learning on the Harry Potter set. What do you feed your mind these days?
I used to read a lot of fiction and now I read a lot of non-fiction. And I discovered a few blogs on Kinja that I like that just talk about interesting things—Deadspin is the one I got into it from, but [Kinja has] a blog for anything that you could possibly be interested in.

I also consume endless factual television programs. I have it in my head that if I go to bed watching something like [the Smithsonian Channel], I’ll retain it, and if I do it enough, then I’ll retain quite a lot, eventually. I was learning about Hittites last night. I remember thinking “That’s good that the Hittites have had a show,” because you don’t hear about them. All of the latest civilizations take their thunder away, but they were one of the first civilizations! They deserve a mention!

Source: Mental Floss