Today the whole world knows him! Did you know who plays this little guy?

Inseparable from the character of Harry Potter for an entire generation of viewers, Daniel Radcliffe played the little wizard created by JK Rowling for an entire decade, from 2001 to 2011, with his teammates Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, answering to the luminaries of cinema. Like Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes or even Michael Gambon.

A bit rarer in cinema since the end of the magical saga, the young British actor recently distinguished himself in films such as the action comedy Guns Akimbo or The Secret of Lost City, an unusual adventure in which he played bad guys. Also in the TV series Miracle Workers, where he played an angel who tries to save the Earth.

In any case, the years never changed his star status, forever tied to his Harry Potter persona.

However, contrary to what you might think, the little witch with the lightning scar is not the first character that Daniel Radcliffe has played in the movies. Indeed, after his first television role in 1999 in David Copperfield (where he already answered Maggie Smith, the future Professor McGonagall), it was in May 2001 – a few months before the release of Harry Potter at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – that the young Englishman first descended into the dark rooms.

In The Tailor of Panama, John Boorman’s espionage film adapted from the novel by John Le Carré, Radcliffe played one of the hero’s two sons: a tailor named Harry Pendell (played by Geoffrey Rush), a privileged confidant of prestigious clients. Panama, which a British spy (Pierce Brosnan) tried to blackmail into obtaining valuable information. The film also featured Jamie Lee Curtis, who played Daniel Radcliffe’s mother.

While the future Harry Potter only appeared in brief family scenes in the feature film (for example, enjoying his bowl of cereal before going to school, as seen in the sequence above), this adventure at least gave a great actor a start. To his great joy, as he confided to the microphone People’s TV In 2019:

“I was a 9-year-old kid working with Pierce Brosnan, who was in the James Bond era at the time. I probably pissed him off a lot. He was really nice to me, but I made a list asking him. He signed photos for my whole class. And he did , he was very good.”

(Do you know which other famous actors are hiding in this 1965 film?)

In addition to the famous interpreter of 007, Daniel Radcliffe also gratefully remembers the first parents of cinema:

Jamie Lee Curtis was my mother, Geoffrey Rush was my father: pretty good for my first screen parents! We were shooting in Panama. For most people, this could have been the best casting of their life. C was awesome to start. And so it happened that I got Harry Potter.”

Indeed, just 6 months after the theatrical release of The Tailor of Panama, the first part of the magical saga hit the darkrooms, the starting point of an unforgettable epic in the young actor’s career.

(Re)discover the trailer for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone…