Daniel Radcliffe on playing Weird Al Yankovic: 'He's so nice!'
Daniel Radcliffe has praised Weird Al Yankovic for his niceness on set of the new spoof biopic about the eccentric star.
Daniel stars as comedic singer-songwriter Alfred Matthew Yankovic, known professionally as Weird Al, in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, alongside Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey.
Recalling the vibe on set, Harry Potter star Daniel told Collider that he didn't feel any pressure playing the lead character.
"I think definitely a lot of license and freedom was given by the fact that it's not just a straight Al biopic and impersonation," he shared. "That, I think, gave me a lot of freedom to be like, okay, this is a version of this person. And I'm also really lucky that Al's nice! And that he wasn't sitting on set like a hawk being like, 'Ah, you did that wrong.' He's very, very generous."
Known for his parodies of Michael Jackson's Beat It and Bad, Born This Way by Lady Gaga and Madonna's Like a Virgin, among many others, Weird Al, 62, also writes original songs which feature his accordion. It was mastering the unusual instrument that proved most challenging for 33-year-old Daniel.
"Most of the notes that I got from him were musical, and particularly about the accordion. He was like, 'Can you be a bit more expansive in how you're pumping it? Because you're a bit cautious with that,' and he's very expressive with it," he remembered. "So, I think he was a bit concerned that I was gonna make him look like a shy accordionist. So yeah, there was that, but generally speaking, it was intimidating but also, as Evan said earlier, when you would see him laugh at something, you'd be like, 'Okay, great! I can go home.' It's a very good seal of approval."
