It wasn’t all acting in the Harry Potter films.
Daniel Radcliffe confessed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he was deathly afraid of Alan Rickman‘s Professor Severus Snape, the potions teacher at Hogwarts.
“I was so intimidated by Alan Rickman. How can you not be by that voice,” Radcliffe said. “Even hearing that voice you forget quite how low it was until it echoes through you. I was so intimidated by him for the first three movies. I was terrified by him and was like, ‘This guy hates me.’”
Radcliffe then watched an interview Rickman gave about him and the rest of the young Harry Potter stars before his death.
In it, the older star reflected on the “huge pride” he felt for Radcliffe succeeding on Broadway at the time, and the pressure that the young actors faced from an early age.
It was Rickman recognizing the drive to succeed by the young actors that softened the relationships.
“He cut short a vacation in Canada to come and see me in Equus. He saw every piece of stage work I did when he was alive,” Radcliffe said. “He would take me out afterwards and we would talk about it.”