Daniel Radcliffe: ‘I’m a geek, I’m obsessed with cricket. What a disappointment I must be to fans who meet me’

The Harry Potter actor speaks of his hopes and fears

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe, 23, is desperate not to become another child actor who fails to make it in Hollywood as an adult.

“I really want to prove all the people wrong who assumed when I got the part that we wouldn’t ever carry on beyond Potter,” he said, citing his performances in Equus, My Boy Jack, December Boys andWoman In Black as “the first steps in what is going to be a very long process”.

In an interview for a documentary aired on Sky Movies on Friday, Radcliffe said: “If I can make it out the other side of this, and forge a career for myself for the next, however long, then any other child actor who comes after me will hopefully not have to deal with all those irritating questions because if me and Rupert [Grint] and Emma [Watson] can do it after the most successful franchise ever, then that puts the argument [about failed child actors] to bed.”

Click here or on "View Gallery" to for pictures of Daniel Radcliffe from child star to grown-up Hollywood actor

He is nevertheless quick to credit the success he has had subsequent to the Harry Potter franchise with the ubiquity it gave him. “Whatever opportunities I get for the rest of my life 99 percent of them you can trace back to the fact that I got this amazing job when I was ten.”

Radcliffe has found fame difficult to handle. “I never read anything about myself in the papers or on the internet but when I was 14 I did – I Googled myself and obviously there were a lot of people saying nice things but you don’t see them, you only see the people who are just vile about you.”

He adds: “It is just really, really strange – the assumption that they know me and that they have a right to talk about me that way. It’s just so unbelievably arrogant.”

Radcliffe has continued to work fulltime following the release of the final Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2, last year. “Somebody said to me after Potter are you not going to take a break? And I said no, I cannot afford to take a break: this is the time when the film world will be watching to see what we do next and we can’t afford to be seen to be inactive: that fear of failure is something that will panic me a lot.”

Although fame has its downsides Radcliffe enjoys being recognized – but fears fans will be disappointed when they meet him in real life. “It’s bizarre when you meet people and they really do feel like they know you. I don’t feel weird about that I just feel like ‘what a disappointment it must be when you meet me’.”

“I think people have an image of film stars that we’re all very cool and I’m not – I am a geek. I’m obsessed with cricket, I’m happy in my own company, I’m not particularly what people want when they meet a movie star, which I’m quite happy about.”

‘Daniel Radcliffe: Being Harry Potter’, Friday 9 November, Sky Movies