Daniel Radcliffe has read Harry Potter fan fiction. Specifically, the stories shipping Harry with Draco Malfoy.
Radcliffe, 34, — who is currently starring in the musical Merrily We Roll Along — took a lie detector test with his Broadway costars for Vanity Fair in an interview published on Tuesday, October 17.
After Jonathan Groff asked him, “Have you ever read fan fiction about yourself?“ Radcliffe was honest in his reaction.
”Yes, aloud on TV,” he said, while Groff, 38, asked about specifics.
“I’m obviously aware there’s a lot of like shipping of Harry and Draco as characters together,” Radcliffe replied. “So, I’ve read some of that.”
When Groff asked Radcliffe to define “shipping, Radcliffe explained that the term means “when you want two characters to get together, for a relationship.
Draco Lucius Malfoy, portrayed in all 8 films by Tom Felton, is a bully and major antagonist to Radcliffe’s Harry in the series — though that hasn’t stopped fans from loving the idea of the two together.
In real life, however, Radcliffe has been in a relationship with actress Erin Darke after meeting her on the set of the 2013 drama Kill Your Darlings. The couple welcomed their first child, a son, in April.
In 2015, Radcliffe opened up to Playboy magazine about falling for Drake, 38, while filming an intimate scene together in the movie.
“That’s a wonderful record of us flirting for the first time,” Radcliffe said at the time. “There’s no acting going on — not from my end, anyway. There’s a moment when she makes me laugh, and I’m laughing as me and not as my character. She was incredibly funny and smart. I knew I was in trouble.”
Felton, for his part, is in a relationship with Rozanne Danya, a jewelry designer he met in South Africa in 2018 when he was filming Origin. Though the couple split in 2019, they got back together the following year and have been together ever since.
In his Vanity Fair video, Radcliffe added that he’s seen more controversial fan fiction about his character, adding that he’s read that he “had the SAS (Special Air Service, a special forces unit of the British Army) walk my dogs.” Another fan-written story claimed that he had a “special beer brewed for myself by monks in a monastery in Belgium.”
The Broadway actor also mentioned that he is often confused with another fantasy film franchise star, Elijah Wood, who portrayed Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. And Radcliffe sees the resemblance.
“We are both short, pale, brown haired actors with blue eyes, but we don’t actually look that alike when we’re next to each other,” he said. “But just like conceptually, we are the same.
Radcliffe has even signed photos for fans who thought he was Wood. Groff confirmed, “I’ve witnessed that. He’s telling the truth.”
