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'Horns' finds Daniel Radcliffe with (more) supernatural powers

Radcliffe stars in the film adaptation of Joe Hill's novel.

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Doane Gregory/Radius TWC/AP
'Horns' stars Daniel Radcliffe (l.) and Juno Temple (r.).
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Actor Daniel Radcliffe has taken on roles that are very different from each other since he finished playing Harry Potter in the “Potter” films. The 2012 horror movie “The Woman in Black” found him portraying a widowed Edwardian lawyer, while the 2013 film “Kill Your Darlings” saw him play writer Allen Ginsberg, and the upcoming movie “Victor Frankenstein” will see him take on the role of one of literature’s most famous assistants, Victor Frankenstein’s helper Igor.

The movie “Horns,” which will hit theaters this October, is another departure. Radcliffe plays Ignatius Perrish, a 20-something who is still dealing with the aftermath of his girlfriend’s death and awakes one morning to discover that two horns are growing out of his forehead, and that they make others want to tell him their secrets. 

“Horns” is based on the 2010 novel of the same name by Joe Hill, who is the son of Stephen King, and the movie co-stars “Maleficent” actress Juno Temple as Ignatius’s girlfriend and “Across the Universe” actor Joe Anderson as his brother, among other actors. The movie is directed by Alexandre Aja, who is behind such films as the 2010 movie “Piranha” and 2006’s “The Hills Have Eyes.”

Radcliffe told the website HitFix that getting the lead role in “Horns” wasn’t easy.

“’Horns’ I had to really sort of fight for I think a little bit because there were – I think at the time that they were casting it, possibly [director Alexandre Aja] had originally thought of somebody slightly older for Ig,” he said. “So I think I had to convince Alex a little bit that I had the maturity and that I could play that as well. But also I went into that meeting and I happened to have a little bit of an obsession with the way the devil is portrayed in the popular culture… The Devil's kind of a great character. Traditionally he's a much more interesting character than anybody else in the Bible. You know, Milton wrote ‘Paradise Lost’ and he made [such a different] Devil… But then he had to write "Paradise Regained" 'cause he was so upset by himself at how appealing he had made the Devil… and so in that sense I was able to go in and talk a lot about the script and about themes and about things like that that I was really into.”

“Horns” will be released on Oct. 31.

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