Daniel Radcliffe: I sometimes was drunk while filming 'Harry Potter'

Daniel Radcliffe: I sometimes was drunk while filming 'Harry Potter'

Feb. 3, 2012, 4:06 PM EST

By Tim KenneallyTheWrap

Forget the potions -- Daniel Radcliffe was under the influence of another intoxicating beverage while filming the hugely successful "Harry Potter" film series.

Radcliffe, 22, admits in a new interview with Heat magazine that he would show up drunk to the "Harry Potter" set, during a period when he was drinking "nightly."

"I can honestly say I never drank at work on 'Harry Potter,'" Radcliffe, who admits to having a "very addictive personality," told the magazine. "I went into work still drunk, but I never drank at work."

While Radcliffe, who was 11 when he began working on the "Harry Potter" films, says he was adept at hiding his drinking from the public, his boozing took a visible effect on his work.

"I can point to many scenes where I'm just gone," Radcliffe said. "Dead behind the eyes."

The actor, who's currently on the promotion trail for his latest film, "The Woman in Black" (in theaters Friday), revealed that his drinking caused him to live under "a cloud of shame."

"After a while, you're living under such a cloud of shame about what you've done and the dread of who you might see, what you might have said to them, what you might have done with them," Radcliffe admitted.

I love the books, and the movies are fun. Personally I believe this is a wonderful young man with a good head on his shoulders. People have already started focusing on the negative aspects, and some have even gone as far as to say they will be throwing out the DVDs and not allowing their children to watch...Honestly these people are probably the ones who were drunk off their butts in college, and making fools of themselves every Saturday at some fraternity/sorority mixer...


He is 22 and lives in a country where the legal drinking age is 18...he is a young man who became an overnight sensation, had very little downtime between filming all 8 movies, and the entire world was watching...I would have tried to relieve some of the pressure as well...


Look for the positive people...and keep watching those Harry Potter DVDs...