Nick Wall/Alliance Films, Jason Merritt/WireImage.com Goodbye, Harry Potter—hello, creepy scary horror thriller!
Daniel Radcliffe will make his post-Potter movie debut in next year's The Woman In Black, a period flick in which he plays a lawyer who encounters the ghost of a not-so-happy woman out for revenge.
"He's so incredibly intelligent and incredibly bright," costar Janet McTeer told me last night at Palihouse in West Hollywood during a cocktail party for her new drama, Albert Nobbs. "He's trying to do something totally new to him—very, very, very talented."
But will Potter fans accept him as anything but the bespectacled wizard?
McTeer weighs in...
"I imagine some of them will like it, but I imagine some of them will want him to be Potter," she said. "For some it will take a bit of adjustment to realize he's not just Harry Potter but he's an actor who is now doing some fantastic things."
And talk about fantastic, McTeer is a likely Oscar contender for her role in Albert Nobbs. The movie stars Glenn Close (she also cowrote the screenplay with John Banville) in the title role as a woman living her life as a man in 19th-century Ireland. McTeer plays Hubert, the only person who knows her secret.
"I was doing a play in New York City and Glenn came to see it, and she came backstage afterwards and we had a nice chat," McTeer remembered. "She said, 'I've got this script. Can I send it to you?' And I said, 'Sure.' I read it and knew right away it was great."
The two worked so well together, McTeer is guesting this season on Close's hit television series Damages.
Will she be going head to head with Close's ruthless Patty Hewes? "Well, head to kneecap I suppose," McTeer cracked. "I'm very much taller than she is."