Daniel Radcliffe ranks Swiss Army Man as hardest film role to date

Daniel Radcliffe put his trust in the Swiss Army Man directors when he signed on to play a dead body.

The English actor has managed to shake off his Harry Potter tag over the past eight years, starring in a diverse line-up of films such as horror The Woman in Black, crime drama Imperium and offbeat fantasy Swiss Army Man, written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

In it he played corpse Manny, opposite Paul Dano as a man stranded on a deserted island who befriends his character.

“I did a Broadway musical for 11 months once and honestly, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever worked on. Doing a musical eight times a week, that was a real physical challenge,” he told StarLifestyle when asked to name his most challenging role.

“In terms of acting and the performance side of things, Swiss Army Man is probably up there just because there’s nothing you can base that on. Every role I’ve ever done, I could prepare for it. That one I didn’t know what to do for preparation, so I went out there and just trusted the directors knew what they wanted, and they did.”

The 29-year-old also touched upon why he hasn’t appeared in any blockbusters since the final Harry Potter wrapped in 2011.

Admitting it’s not a deliberate decision, Daniel explained that he simply says yes to projects where he likes the script.

“It’s hard to get anyone to spend money on (scripts that are) too big of a risk. A lot of the big studios, I find the scripts are not as challenging or weird or interesting as the stuff they make in the indie world or even in the TV world,” he said. “So the things that I gravitate to, so far they just happen to be in the indie world.”