You are going to read an article about the actor Daniel Radcliffe, who played the role of Harry Potter in the films. For questions 1-6, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Daniel Radcliffe
I first meet Daniel Radcliffe at the offices of his agent, just before he takes to the stage for an evening performance of The Cripple Of Inishmaan. He’s wearing tight jeans, no glasses, and is a super ball of energy. He is extraordinarily polite, slim, well turned out. If you’d never seen him before, you might assume he was a children’s television presenter. But at the age of just 24 he has 16 movies behind him, eight of them Harry Potter blockbusters. It feels as if he’s been with us forever. The funny thing is, apart from the facial hair, he doesn’t really look any different from the schoolboy wizard who made his screen debut in 2001.
Yet over the past half-dozen years, it seems he has done everything he could to distinguish himself from Harry in the parts he has chosen to play. Radcliffe disagrees with this, saying ‘I pick films based on scripts and directors and parts. I’m not interested in making films I’ve seen before. There’s nothing more exciting to me when I read a script than originality. That’s all it’s governed by, there’s no master plan to distance myself from Potter.’
He says he doesn’t want to sound ungrateful. ‘I know that Potter is going to be with me for the rest of my life, so to try to stop people talking about that any more is stupid. It’s just a fact of your life, so you can’t get annoyed by it. You have to accept the fact that you were involved in this incredibly cool thing and though you might not always be happy with the work you did on it, the opportunity it has given you to make a career for yourself is amazing.’
Was he aware how much Harry would change his life when he was offered the part? ‘No, I knew I was signing on for the first two, that four books had come out. Warner, the film company, genuinely didn’t know at that stage if they were going to make more than one film. If it flopped, then they certainly weren’t going to put up all that money again.’ Did he ever consider exercising his opt-out clause? ‘By the third film, I thought, if there’s a time to get out, it’s now; there’s still enough time for another actor to come in and establish himself. For a while, I thought, if I do all of them, will I be able to move on to other stuff or should I start doing other stuff now? But in the end I decided I was having way too much fun. And actually there aren’t many great parts out there for teenage boys, certainly not as good as Harry Potter.’
Nowadays, of course, he is incredibly wealthy. I ask whether he sometimes worries people might socialise with him purely because of that. He laughs, and says people are going to be sadly disappointed if they befriend him for his lavish spending. ‘Anyone who is my friend knows that I don’t spend money. So they can hang around with me as much as they like and they still aren’t going to get anything. Haha!’ But, he says, he has never had a problem with working out who to trust. ‘I’m a fairly good judge of character, and I have a small but very close circle of friends. I’m not looking to recruit new friends, though I’m actually very open with people. I had a similar conversation with myself when I was about 17, the first time somebody had really betrayed that trust, and I said to myself you have two options: you either become totally insular and shut down and not let anybody into your life ever, or you can continue to be open and amiable when you meet people, and trusting, and occasionally get hurt. And I do think that is the best way.’
1 What do we learn about Daniel in the first paragraph?
A He is now working in TV programmes for children.
B His appearance has changed considerably since his childhood.
C He is currently acting in the theatre.
D He is amused by the way he looked in his early films.
2 What does Daniel say about his current work?
A He likes to make changes to the film scripts he is given.
B He sometimes has to accept roles he would rather reject.
C He finds it difficult to play roles that are not Harry.
D He denies he chooses roles as unlike Harry as possible.
3 What does Daniel appear to be criticising in the third paragraph?
A Some of his acting in the Harry Potter films.
B The overall quality of the Harry Potter films.
C The effect of playing Harry Potter on his career.
D Attempts to talk to him about Harry Potter.
4 When Daniel was first asked to play Harry Potter
A he thought the first film would be made on a low budget.
B he thought that only two Harry Potter books would be published.
C he had no idea how many films in the series there would be.
D he only wanted to be in the first film in the series.
5 Why did Daniel eventually decide to be in every film?
A He thought nobody else could play the role of Harry.
B He was enjoying making the films so much.
C He never considered doing any other kind of work.
D He knew it would eventually lead to different roles.
6 How does Daniel feel about friendship?
A He believes he knows how to choose friends well.
B He would like to have more friends than he has now.
C He finds it difficult to trust people these days.
D He likes to be generous to those he is close to.
Answer
1 C 2 D 3 A 4 C 5 B 6 A