Harry Potter Scene Daniel Radcliffe Would Never Film Again
As it turns out, Radcliffe did pretty much all his underwater stunts without any stunt doubles.
Fans love the Harry Potter franchise for many reasons. It has everything a viewer could wish for: magic, adventure, coming-of-age, good versus evil, romance, stunning locations, mind-blowing twists. While enjoying the wizarding world on their screens, audiences rarely think of the Harry Potter films as action movies and Daniel Radcliffe as an action star. After all, how can a child be called that?
But the fact remains that some scenes in Harry Potter were as suspenseful as Tom Cruise films. Just think of Goblet of Fire, where the champions of the Triwizard Tournament had to perform truly dangerous tasks, including tricking a deadly dragon and going to the bottom of the Great Lake. Turns out, then-14-year-old Daniel Radcliffe did all the underwater scenes himself, without any stunt performers.
Looking back on filming The Great Lake scenes, Radcliffe calls his experience nothing short of "special."
The actor described to GQ how little attention he seemed to pay to the gravity of the situation at the time, as the crew built a massive underwater set and prepared to work in the lake for over a month. Each day, Radcliffe and the crew would spend hours and hours underwater, and yet they would only be able to produce a few seconds of footage that could be used for the final cut.
The experience was truly unique for the young actor and would certainly be a highlight of any actor's career. As Radcliffe explained:
"Those are one of those things that you go like, 'I will never do that again,' and if I do, I'll be one of the only people who's done it before."
Of course, The Goblet of Fire was not the only time Radcliffe had to work underwater. In The Half-Blood Prince, the underwater scene gets a whole lot more intense than that. Fans will recall how Dumbledore saved Harry from drowning in a Horcrux cave by summoning fire. It turns out that the ring of fire Harry went through was real, and Daniel Radcliffe did the stunt himself.
The actor described being pulled out of the water on a wire through a ring of fire. It must have been terrifying.
"It's phenomenal that they allowed me to do that myself, and like again, I'll never probably be on a job where they do let me do that kind of stuff," Radcliffe shared.