Though he'll always be Harry Potter in our hearts and minds, Daniel Radcliffe isn't eager to jump back into the role any time soon.
When he was recently asked by The New York Times about returning to the role in a potential film adaptation of the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Radcliffe declined. “This isn’t the answer that anybody’s going to want, but I think I was so able to go back and enjoy it because it’s not a part of my day-to-day life anymore,” he said. “I’m getting to a point where I feel like I made it out of Potter okay, and I’m really happy with where I am now, and to go back would be such a massive change to my life.”
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which picks up 19 years after the events of Deathly Hallows, the golden trio (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) have become parents to their own brood of Hogwarts troublemakers. There's also some time travel, and…I won't spoil more.
The play ran on London's West End and on Broadway in two parts before the pandemic and has since reopened as a one-night performance in New York (London still has the two-night version running). In honor of the film franchise's recent 20th anniversary, Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets director Chris Columbus told Variety he was interested in adapting the play into a film with the original stars. He pointed out that Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are finally the right age for the story. (They're actually a few years younger than their Cursed Child counterparts, but movies do take a lot of time to make.)
Still, Daniel Radcliffe isn't shutting the door forever. “I’m never going to say never,” he told the Times. The actor also noted that when other famous franchise leads—like the original Star Wars trio—returned to their roles, 30 to 40 years had passed. “For me, it’s only been 10. It’s not something I’m really interested in doing right now.”
Fair enough! It's not like he has much downtime. Since ending his run in the Wizarding World, Daniel Radcliffe has starred in the sitcom Miracle Workers, indie films like Swiss Army Man, and appears alongside Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in the upcoming action-comedy The Lost City. Accio a break!
