Daniel Radcliffe shares why his 20-year-old self 'wouldn't recognize him'

NEW YORK – Daniel Radcliffe’s character in the one-person Broadway play, “Every Brilliant Thing,” struggles with generational depression and composes a list of reasons to stay alive – small, specific joys like ice cream, waking up late with someone you love and the sound a vinyl record makes just as the needle hits it. In a panel following his March 31 performance, the Tony-award winning “Harry Potter” star opened up about his own mental health struggles and the joys of fatherhood.

The show relies on interaction from the audience. In the 30 minutes prior to his performance, he races throughout the crowd, interacting with fans and attendees and casting them into roles like "veterinarian," “professor,” “Dad” and even his future wife. 

Radcliffe says his “main job,” beyond knowing his lines, is caring for the audience. When he asks them to be part of the show, he promises them that if anyone ends up looking foolish, “it will be me, not them.” For example, for one scene, he checks in advance that the participant hasn’t recently lost a pet to avoid brushing up against a sensitive subject. That same sensitivity is carried throughout his kind, careful and convincing performance.

'There is such potential for profound happiness'

Throughout the show, Radcliffe’s character shares information about suicide loss, dispels mental health myths and gives simple, encouraging reminders to the audience to “keep going.” 

After the performance, Radcliffe was just as open about mental health in real life and talked about moments of his life where he was “deeply unhappy.” Project Healthy Minds, a mental health tech nonprofit, has an ongoing partnership with the show to expand access to mental health services and hosted the evening’s panel. 

“The are a few times in my life when I've been deeply unhappy, and particularly when I was much younger,” Radcliffe shared. But now, things like just spending a day walking down the street and holding hands with his 3-year-old son brings him unimaginable joy. 

“There’s photos of myself and my son that I’m so happy in then, that if you showed them to me when I was 20, I would not recognize myself,” he said. “There is such potential for profound happiness … if it’s not where you are right now, it’s always worth giving the future a chance to prove you wrong.” 

His parents were in the audience (he cast them as “old couple”). He talked about going to the theater with them as a kid, and said that his best memories were the conversations on the way home. He hopes that this play and its bold approach to mental health will be a “gateway” to start conversations around mental health, especially for those who may be struggling. It's been a welcome change from his past roles, he shared.

“I’ve made films about guys with guns strapped to their hands, and like, dumb stuff,” he quipped. “It’s so nice to do something that has an actual, real world practical effect, potentially. It’s a very rare and wonderful thing.”