Daniel Radcliffe shares casting idea he was pitched with his Harry Potter co-stars: ‘Worst idea I’ve ever heard’

Daniel Radcliffe has spoken about the “worst” casting ideas he has received in his career.

During the latest episode of Hot Ones, Radcliffe told host Sean Evans that he and his Harry Potter castmates,Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, were approached about remaking a classic film.

“One of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard, during Potter, somebody came to us and I think asked, like they wanted to cast all three of us, me, Emma and Rupert, in a remake of Wizard of Oz, where Emma was Dorothy,” Radcliffe said.

“I can’t remember what Rupert was, and I just remember that I was gonna be the lion, but also he knew karate.”

“I was like a karate-kicking cowardly lion,” he continued. “And I remember I was like 14 or 15, and I was like, ‘I don’t know a lot about the world, but this is a bad idea, and it should not be made.’”

While the remake didn’t end up happening, other adaptations and variations have been produced, including a 2013 prequel movie called Oz the Great and Powerful starring James Franco, and the two Wicked films in 2024 and 2025.

As for Radcliffe, he is hoping to create some distance from the Harry Potter franchise ahead of the upcoming release of the HBO television reboot starring a new group of actors. Speaking about the remake, the Broadway actor urged fans and press not to ask the young new stars about him, Watson or Grint ahead of its release.

“When these kids got cast, there is a whole thing around the internet being like, ‘We have to look after these kids!'” he told ScreenRant.

“If you really mean that, then one of the things you can do is don’t ask about us – me, Emma [Watson] and Rupert [Grint] – all the time. I would like not to be weird spectral phantoms in these children’s lives.” He added that fans should “just let them get on with” what will be a “new, different thing.” Radcliffe also reckoned that 11-year-old Dominic McLaughlin will “be better” than he was in the role.

Since Radcliffe hung up his cloak of invisibility for good in 2011, the star has ventured into the theatre world — winning a 2023 Tony Award for his performance in Merrily We Roll Along. He’ll return to Broadway this spring in a one-man show titled Every Brilliant Thing, which opens March 12.

Radcliffe is also set to appear in the upcoming sports sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, alongside 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan and Erika Alexander.