Credit to Daniel Radcliffe: after the spectacular success of the Harry Potter series there was probably a place for him as a sort of junior Hugh Grant, eking out a living in odious British rom-coms for the rest of his career. Instead, his next film is the dark fantasy Horns in which he plays a young man who everyone thinks has raped and killed his girlfriend. The first picture from Horns has just hit the web.
An adaptation of Joe Hill's 2010 novel, French director Alexandre Aja's film looks at first glance like it might be set in a sort of modern-day Narnia, with Radcliffe starring as an emo Mr Tumnus the faun. In reality the action (in the book at least) takes place in the small town of Gideon, New Hampshire, where 26-year-old Ignatius "Ig" Perrish wakes up one day to find he has sprouted a pair of horns which give him the power to divine people's innermost secrets (and occasionally compel them to indulge in their weirdest fantasies). Even more usefully, those in question then forget the conversation they have just had and seem to be entirely oblivious to Perrish's diabolical protrusions.
Ig's major quandary is presumably whether to use the horns to track down the murderer and rapist who killed his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, some time previously. "It's a very, very different type of part [to] anything I've done before," says Radcliffe, adding that the role is "deeply emotional and also incredibly outrageous in some ways". He adds: "To play somebody who, in the midst of a time in his life of great turmoil anyway, undergoes this horrific transformation into a devil character – it was very, very exciting."
According to Entertainment Weekly, which first posted the shot and picked up the quotes, Radcliffe is currently shooting in Vancouver. Will this be the 23-year-old actor's first foray into genuine adult fare after the slightly scary but hardly racy horror The Woman in Black? We'll find out some time next year – no release date yet – when the film hits cinemas.
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