Daniel Radcliffe Confirms What We Suspected All Along About His Time On The Harry Potter Set

"Harry Potter" fans can't wait to see Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson reunite for the franchise 20th anniversary special on HBO on New Year's Day. The one-time special will feature sit-downs with the three leads, as well as many other fan-favorite actors across the series' eight films, according to Glamour. The streaming event has been a long time coming for fans of The Wizarding World, who have called on the cast to reunite for years.

Actor Evanna Lynch, who portrays Luna Lovegood, predicted in 2021 that a large-scale reunion for fans could only be pulled off by the original "Harry Potter" production company. "For reunions, it's hard because everyone lives in different parts of the world now," Lynch told Us Weekly. "There's a few of them in L.A. and then a good lot of us in London... So there's like mini reunions, but I think it would take a Warner Bros. operation to get everyone together."

The highly-anticipated large-scale reunion promises to give an inside look at the production years later. In a sneak peek of the upcoming special, Radcliffe confirmed what fans suspected all along about his time on the HP set as a young man.

Daniel Radcliffe revealed that his fondest childhood memories happened on the Harry Potter set — including his first brushes with romance. In preview clips published by the Daily Mail, Radcliffe and his co-stars reminisce about growing up behind the scenes at Hogwarts.

"Every part of my life is connected to Potter and to [Warner Bros Studios, Leavesden]," Radcliffe recalls in the clip. "My first kiss is connected to someone here, my first girlfriends were here... everything I can think of is that related right now." Radcliffe said he will always be happy to speak about his formative years in the "Harry Potter" franchise. "I think people expect me not to want to talk about it," he said. "But that's like somebody never talking about their childhood or teenage years."

Interestingly, Radcliffe told The Daily Post in 2007 his first-ever smooch didn't take place on the "Harry Potter" set when discussing his character's first onscreen kiss in "The Order Of The Phoenix," the fifth movie in the series. "Certainly for me, my first kiss is a moment that has stayed very fresh in my mind so it wasn't particularly difficult," Radcliffe said at the time. "I was 14 when I had my own first kiss and, no, it wasn't on the Harry Potter set." He added, joking, "I don't think that mixing business with pleasure is a good idea...is it?" Perhaps Radcliffe was playing coy years ago.

Though fans of the Wizarding World have been clamoring for a "Harry Potter" reunion for over a decade, Daniel Radcliffe is certainly in no rush. In 2020, when asked if he'd be open to returning as the series' titular character, Radcliffe told Variety, "​​I don't think so. I don't like [to] say no to things, but it's not something that I'm rushing to do."

"I feel like those films have moved on and they're doing just fine without us," he further continued. "I'm happy to keep it that way. I like what my life is now." The actor clarified that "I'm not saying that I'll never go back into any franchise, but I like the flexibility that I have with my career now. And I don't want to get into a situation where I'm signed up for one series for years in advance."

Since wrapping the Potter series, Radcliffe has experimented with other genres, including the 2016 comedy-drama "Swiss Army Man" and the 2012 horror, "The Woman in Black." He also currently stars in the TBS anthology series, "Miracle Workers," alongside Steve Buscemi. In working with the legend, Radcliffe told ET that Buscemi "would've been a pretty good Sirius." He mused, "I think there are many roles for Steve in Potter." 

In 2016, Daniel Radcliffe opened up about the struggles of childhood fame. "Ultimately, the hardest thing about growing up in the spotlight, it's not the easy access to drugs or the strange, sort of pandering world you enter into," Radcliffe admitted, per the Mirror. "The difficulty is trying to work out who you are while constantly coming up against a perception of yourself that everybody else already has." He also added that "it's very important, especially when you become famous young, to work out who you are without fame... Fame does not last forever. For anyone."

When "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" came out in 2001, actors Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were all just kids weaseling their way into their teens. However, in becoming a worldwide box office phenomenon, the then-kids of "Harry Potter" were thrust with the woes of fame from an early age. In January 2021, Grint, now 33, discussed their rise to prominence.

Grint, who had expressed thoughts of walking away from acting, told The Times (via Insider), "... Potter happened at such a young age and I found it hard to deal with the fame side of things." He also revealed, "If I ever do see Dan [Radcliffe] or Emma [Watson], fame is the one thing we never talk about."