I always get a little excited to see interviews with Daniel Radcliffe yet seldom cover them because he’s not a huge gossip draw. He’s so gracious and sweet, but he lacks controversy (with rare exception). So I usually resist posting about DanRad even when he confesses hilarious things like knowing the lyrics to every Emimem song (video here).

Anyway, here is a rare Radcliffe fix. He gave a pretty great interview to the Guardian to promote his new romantic comedy (!), What If. This is a movie about a guy in love with his best female friend (who is played by Zoe Kazan). Daniel rails against the use of the term “friend zone” to describe the film’s story. He’s very conscious of the sexist connotations of the word, and he wouldn’t allow producers use The Friend Zone as a title. Dan also says some hilarious things about his nude scenes and why he had to stop Googling himself. There’s also some not-so-happy topics of conversation, which include cluster headaches and the right moment to whip out one’s bitch on a pushy journo:

On past predictions of a career implosion: “[That’s] hard to deal with, because a lot of us already have those fears anyway: what if this doesn’t last for ever?; what if I don’t end up working in 10 years? So for other people to then be asking you about those things all the time is like having your innermost fears confirmed by somebody outside of yourself. And that’s quite a challenging thing when you’re 17.”

He gets cluster headaches: “You have to be on blood pressure medication and have an ECG every so often … but don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine!”

On not calling the movie The Friend Zone: “I was like, no, we can’t do that, because it’s not a [phrase] I love,” he says, no doubt aware that the phrase has increasingly been under attack from feminists. “The friend zone refers to a very male thing … you never hear women say they’ve been put in the friend zone. And I think that’s because it’s just used by men who are p-ssed off that their mate won’t sleep with them.”

His girlfriend, Erin Darke: “She’s an obsessive Detroit Redwings fan – when your girlfriend can talk sh-t about sports better than the men she’s doing that with, that’s pretty sexy.”

On his career’s nude scenes: “I don’t mind it, but I’d like to make clear it’s not a request. I’m not sat there reading scripts thinking, how can I get my d–k out in this one?” He admits the naked scenes have caused him to increase his time in the gym, especially since he watched Kill Your Darlings and thought, “F—, I’m skinny as a rat!”

He fanboy-ed on Pete Doherty in a Eurostar station: “He was really really sweet. He let me waffle on for five minutes about how brilliant I thought his music was.”

He goes incognito to music festivals: “I wore a gas mask for [one] most of the time. I was with Rupert Grint and we really didn’t want to be recognised.”

Dan says he won’t talk about his alcohol issues, journo asks anyway: He fixes me with a surprisingly icy stare: “Why would you ask that when you know I don’t like to talk about it? If I had to give my younger self one piece of advice it would be, don’t talk about that in an interview. Because I’ve answered questions on it for three or four years since. And it’s such an insignificant part of my life that everyone just wants to talk about. Daniel Radcliffe alcoholic. Daniel Radcliffe gay. Daniel Radcliffe girlfriend.”

Are the gay rumors a sign he’s made it? “Probably. If people are speculating about your sexuality, then you’re doing OK. It f—s you up. You shouldn’t be on [Google] if you’re an actor. There’s a line in The Thick Of It – Googling yourself is like opening the door to a room full of people telling you how sh-t you are – and it’s exactly that. I first did it in my late teens and it was such a destructive thing for me to do.”

[From Guardian]

There’s so much in this interview that I could talk for days. I dig how Daniel shut down the question about alcohol. He acknowledged that the rumors of hard boozing were true but didn’t want to talk about it. Then the journo tried to push him to discuss anyway. Rude. The journo deserved the icy stare. Dan deftly shuts down talk of gay rumors and his relationship status. What he says about Google is funny, and the “destructive” description of self googling is probably true. I bet he still plugs his name into a search engine sometimes.

Dan’s been giving interviews all over the place. He talks more about his cluster headaches with the Independent. He says he was taking 12 painkillers a day, and nothing worked until he got on blood pressure meds. Sounds painful. He also spoke to USA Today about how he finds interest in celebrities to be “weird.” He says, “People ask me about my relationship, and I try to give a little away as possible. People are dying in the world, give time to that.” Yes, but celebrity gossip is escapism from all the true ills of the world.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN