Daniel Radcliffe’s Next Trick Is to Make Harry Potter Disappear

Luca Locatelli for The New York Times

Before Daniel Radcliffe became the most famous child actor in history, he was just a child: an only child, a poor sleeper, a nonstop talker, a picky eater. He was also disarmingly sweet. In the screen test he took at age 10, in 2000, for the first Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," he smiles brightly, ebullient, his delight in being there apparent; he is concentrating, concentrating so hard at one point that he mouths words under his breath while waiting to deliver a line, but even still, when he does finally speak, he is all natural sincerity. His face is a flawless little-boy face, his eyes huge and cerulean blue. One eye occasionally blinks more slowly than the other, but no matter. He turns, compliantly, this way and that when asked. About four minutes into the footage, someone places the iconic round glasses on him, and there he is: Harry Potter, boy wizard, the chosen one. The adult voice on the video says: "Those look good."

Within weeks, Radcliffe, officially cast as Harry Potter, was sitting at a news conference before a roomful of cameras and reporters. One of his first questions from the media: "How do you feel about becoming famous?" Radcliffe brightened: "It'll be cool!" The crowd laughed.

Thirteen years later, on Sept. 2, Radcliffe was on a small boat in Venice, speeding along the Grand Canal toward the Rialto Bridge. The bridge, a 16th-century stone marvel, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Venice, but on that day, it was merely a convenient viewing station from which wildly waving fans could await Radcliffe's arrival. Radcliffe was making his way from the Lido, a small resort island that hosts the Venice Film Festival, to a department store that had agreed to publicize, with huge banners, the independent film, "Kill Your Darlings," that Radcliffe was in town to promote. Young people, mostly girls but a few boys, had been lining up outside the store since the evening before for an autograph-signing. Radcliffe was hoping to lure at least some of his Harry Potter following to see his new film, in which he plays a youth icon of a different order: the poet Allen Ginsberg, during his rebellious late-teenage years.

Everywhere Radcliffe looked, on tiny side streets opening out to the water, on lacy balconies overhead, people were crammed in close, screaming his name — "Donyell! Donyell!" — and blowing kisses. From the deck, a manager with the film's Italian distributor called to Radcliffe, "Come up top!" The day was beautiful, with that warm Venetian light bouncing off the water. "I've been told not to — sorry!" Radcliffe called back. Radcliffe, who is 24, looked mortified by this precaution, which was not to protect his safety but someone else's labor. "I'm sorry I'm acting like I care about my hair," he told me, "but Dan"— his hairstylist — "gave me strict instructions not to make him look like an ass."

Radcliffe, in person, generally vibrates at a faster frequency than the character that made him famous, but looking out at the awaiting throng, he seemed quiet and focused. After so many years, he is accustomed to the frenzied desire, the crazed crush of fans wanting to see him, capture him on film or claim his autograph; if he was feeling some dread, it was because he already knew that he would be disappointing so many people. "I'm more nervous about the anticipation of feeling bad," he said. "When you've got thousands of people who've gotten up at 4 in the morning and think they're going to get something and they won't. . . ."

Now the boat inched its way around a tight bend and pulled up to a dock the crowd could not access. Radcliffe's bodyguard, Sam, never more than an arm's length away, led him up some stairs and into the glaring artificial light of the department store, which smelled of perfume and wool. From a balcony, Radcliffe took in the view — some 1,500 people, packing the street. A sofa had been set up in one of the in-store boutiques, and a few feet away, behind a barrier, a phalanx of young girls pressed up against one another to get closer to Radcliffe as he, Sam and his publicist tried to get their bearings. In the absence of a clear plan, Radcliffe walked up to the barricade and began signing cellphones, books and T-shirts, but the crowd started to heave and surge — "Que bello!" cried a girl — at which point Sam pulled Radcliffe away. (Laconic, 6 foot 3 and movie-star handsome, Sam — who agreed to be identified by only his first name — alternates monthly with another bodyguard; one or the other accompanies Radcliffe everywhere.)

Luca Locatelli for The New York Times

An autograph session at Coin, a department store in Venice.

Once an orderly line formed, Radcliffe stood and signed autographs, as one of the 12 security guards hired for the event pushed the girls along to keep things moving. "Can I get a hug?" one girl asked. "No, but it's lovely meeting you!" Radcliffe said. Another young woman was shaking with emotion. "Are you O.K.?" he nervously asked. ("It only makes it worse if you're nice," he later observed, miserably.) At one point, he scrawled an autograph on a piece of paper, then threw it away quickly. "That one's no good." A vein in his forehead had become more visible than usual.

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