He’s following the Elijah Wood school of acting.
Because Daniel Radcliffe isn’t the only young blue-eyed lad who became famous at an early age for playing an innocent-looking character in a fantasy film series… Elijah Wood, as Lord of the Rings’ Frodo, did it first. And he, too, has played primarily weirdos in a variety of uncomfortable-to-watch projects ever since.
The two guys even look kind of similar — both short, petite, with brown hair, very bright blue eyes and pale skin. Wood didn’t want to play a hobbit for his entire life, evidently. And Radcliffe didn’t want to be a magical boy with a scarred forehead chased by a noseless creep for all his career, either. Perfectly understandable, I’d say.
So Radcliffe, like Wood before him, picked strange parts. Unusual parts. Played in uncomfortable stage performances, portrayed hunchbacks, monsters and eccentrics in a great many surreal performances that took him far out of his comfort zone…
And I say, it paid off. Of all the young actors from the Harry Potter series, Radcliffe has by far the most compelling and interesting career trajectory. Rupert Grint more or less disappeared, Emma Watson’s career bloomed early and bled out within five or six years of the last Potter film and only Radcliffe has done well for himself, career-wise. Better than Elijah Wood, even — the OG “pale magical boy from a fantasy series turned weird actor”. But then, Wood walked so Radcliffe could run.