When Daniel Radcliffe hit the bottle while filming Harry Potter, it seemed the child star curse had struck again.
But he got back on the rails and stayed there as firmly as the Hogwarts Express.
And after reaching 32 last week he reveals people are always amazed he isn’t more “messed up”.
“I was very aware early on people have very low expectations of what I’ll be like,” he says. “Which is great because hopefully you always exceed them.
"Once I was having dinner with the Director of Photography on a film and I told some weird story about a thing that happened to me in a kind of light, amused way.
“When I got to the end, the DP looked at me and went, ‘How are you not more messed up?’ It’s a reaction that does happen and I don’t really have a satisfying answer for people.”
While child stars like Macaulay Culkin and Justin Bieber have struggled with addictions, arrests and family fallouts, Daniel has avoided scandals, quitting booze in 2010 and in a steady relationship with actor Erin Darke since 2012.
He attributes his level-headedness to literary agent dad Alan and casting director mum Marcia Gresha.
He says: “I have parents supportive of me but who also asked me between every film: ‘Are you still having fun? You do know you don’t have to do this?’
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“And I was like: ‘I really want to do this, I hate school so much.’ I was conscious of the stereotype of child actors, and they didn’t want to be pushy parents.”
It comes as Radcliffe ruled himself out of major celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the first of the 8-film series being released this month.
There are rumours that the cast of Potter will be reuniting to mark the anniversary on November 4th.
But Daniel told WION : “I’m in the Dominican Republic at the moment, filming, and then I’m going to be busy, kind of working on bits and pieces until the end of the year.
"So, yeah, I don’t know. I’m sure there will be some sort of celebration but I don’t know if we will be getting together or anything. I’m sorry if that’s a bit of a disappointment to anyone.”
