“For as long as I can just be his dad, and he won’t know me as anything else, I will maintain that for as long as I can.”

Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t want his son to know he’s Harry Potter

"For as long as I can just be his dad, and he won't know me as anything else, I will maintain that for as long as I can."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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February 20, 2026 8:00 a.m. ET

Daniel Radcliffe in New York City on Dec. 1, 2025. Credit:

Valerie Terranova/Getty

- Daniel Radcliffe said that he's going to avoid telling his son that he played Harry Potter for "as long as I can."

- The actor explained that he wants to "just be his dad" so that "he won't know me as anything else."

- Radcliffe also said that he'd be open to reading J.K. Rowling's *Harry Potter *books with his son, as well as watching the forthcoming HBO series with him.

Daniel Radcliffe is pulling a Vernon Dursley: he's hiding all his connections to Hogwarts from his young son.

The *Swiss Army Man* star explained why he's trying to stop his son from connecting him to his most iconic project, the *Harry Potter* series, for as long as possible.

"Does my son know who Harry Potter is? No, not yet," Radcliffe told *The New York Times*. "Somebody gave me a DVD to sign recently, so it was sitting on our kitchen table for a couple of days, and at one point, he was next to it and I was just like, 'Who's that?' — I'd see if he recognized me on the cover."

The actor was relieved to find that his 2-year-old son didn't recognize his bespectacled younger self. "He didn't [recognize me], which is great," he said. "For as long as I can just be his dad, and he won't know me as anything else, I will maintain that for as long as I can."

Daniel Radcliffe in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'.

Peter Mountain/Warner Bros.

Radcliffe welcomed his first child with his girlfriend, actress Erin Darke, in April 2023. The actor also told the *Times* that he wouldn't necessarily shy away from reading J.K. Rowling's *Potter* books to his son if he ever shows interest in the series. "If he gets into them, I totally will," he said, "but I don't think I'll nudge him toward them, because I don't think I'll need to — he'll find them eventually."

If that happens and his son wants to watch an adaptation of Rowling's work, Radcliffe said he'd rather show the upcoming HBO series instead of his own films. "Hopefully I can just put that on, and he doesn't have to watch me in it," he said. "That'd be, honestly, the ideal."

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The *Guns Akimbo* actor also cited Gary Oldman as one of his acting heroes when asked which performers he admires the most.

"I feel like for most actors, you look at that kind of career — people like him, people like Steve Buscemi, who I've worked with as well," he reflected. "He pops up in every genre, and everything, and you just, when you look at that, to me, you see somebody having fun, enjoying their career."

Radcliffe also shouted out one of the most impactful pieces of pop culture that shaped his sensibilities. "*The Simpsons *is just one of the formative pieces of my personality," he said. "Most of the facts I know about either American geography or American culture are probably— many of them derived from *The Simpsons*. It's the reason that I know Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota. I think the first time I saw Weird Al was him being referenced in a *Simpsons* episode." (Radcliffe recently played Weird Al Yankovic in the biopic *Weird: The Al Yankovic Story*).

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The actor will soon return to the Broadway stage with *Every Little Thing*, a one-man play that hinges on voluntary audience participation.

"I'm doing it because it's fun and interesting and a cool theatrical experience, but also I think there's something really important in the message of it, and something that might be vital for somebody to hear," he said. "I'm not saying this show saves lives, but this show wants people to stay alive."

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