ABOVE: Watch Daniel Radcliffe on Global’s The Morning Show.
MONTREAL — Daniel Radcliffe said Wednesday he enjoyed stripping down on a Toronto beach two years ago and running into the water.
“Lake Ontario was a very pleasant place to go skinny dipping,” he recalled.
The naked splash was for a scene in The F Word, a romantic comedy that opens Aug. 22.
During an appearance on Global’s The Morning Show in Toronto, the former Harry Potter star (celebrating his 25th birthday) said he loved being able to play a contemporary character in a well-crafted story.
“We’re not reinventing the romantic comedy by any stretch but we’re executing it really, really well,” he said.
“It’s everything I love about romantic comedies because it is really funny but it should pack an emotional punch at the end as well. I’m excited for people to see it.”
Directed by Ontario’s Michael Dowse (Goon), The F Word was shot in the summer of 2012 and debuted last September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
It was nominated for five Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Picture.
Radcliffe’s Wallace falls for a young woman named Chantry (Zoe Kazan) but must settle for a friends-only relationship because she’s got a boyfriend (Rafe Spall).
The movie also stars Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis and Canada’s Megan Park.
“A lot of people will be really surprised by Dan in this movie because he’s so funny and such a natural comedian,” said Kazan on Monday on Global’s The Morning Show, “which you don’t really get to see in the Harry Potter series or The Woman in Black.”
Park agreed. “This movie is the most like Dan in real life than I’ve ever seen on film before,” she said. “He’s very funny and charming.”
BELOW: Watch Zoe Kazan and Megan Park talk about Daniel Radcliffe and The F Word on The Morning Show.
After playing the titular wizard in eight Harry Potter movies between 2001 and 2011, Radcliffe has taken on some decidedly different — and grown-up — roles. He starred in the thriller The Woman in Black and portrayed poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings. His next film to hit theatres is the made-in-Vancouver horror comedy Horns.
“You can’t make a plan, you can’t strategize because there’s no way of knowing what’s going to be successful,” Radcliffe explained. “As long as the work is the focus and you really love it — because I think a lot of people fall in love with other things about the industry, which are not necessarily my favourite things about it.”
The F Word explores the question: Can straight men and women really have platonic relationships?
“I think they can,” Radcliffe said. “Absolutely. I have plenty of girls who are friends who I am not planning on starting a relationship with.”
Do they feel the same way? He laughs. “I think so.”
Park also said it’s possible. “I have friends who are men and I’m in a relationship,” she said.
Kazan recalled how she once chastised her boyfriend for not having female friends. “Maybe I was just trying to get away with having as many male friends as I do,” she said. “It’s really healthy. It’s good. It gives you a different kind of perspective.”
Even though the “F’ in The F Word stands for “friendship,” the movie has been given a different title south of the border, where it is being released as What If.
“Only Canada was mature enough to see a film called The F Word,” said Radcliffe, who shared another observation about the country’s population.
“I feel like Canada and Canadians get bored of hearing people call them polite and warm and welcoming and all those things,” he said. “But you really are.
“Everyone has an image of the English being really polite but you destroy the competition.”
BELOW: Watch the trailer for The F Word.
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