Daniel Radcliffe has opened up about his alcohol dependency in the past year and said that the cause of it all was his self-consciousness.
"Anytime I'd go out to dance, camera phones would come out. That would make me very self-conscious, and what's the easiest way to escape being self-conscious? Alcohol is a quick way of doing that," said Radcliffe.
In an article that was published last Oct. 20 in Playboy, the Harry Potter star also shared a lot about his experience growing up as a celebrity and being stuck in an infamous role that was loved by all ages.
"It may have become clear to me only in the past few years. In your head, you imagine it will all go away once the series is over. When I was first going out to bars and pubs, I was trying to pretend I could have a normal existence. Then you realize that people know who you are, and when you're in a bar they take out their camera phones. Eventually you accept that you have to adapt how you live," Radcliffe said.
The 26-year-old actor also said that he is amazed that he overcame a role in the play 'Equus' on Broadway, which has a part where his character ran in the stage naked, despite having issues with his self-consciousness.
"I was onstage for the entire show, and I ran around naked for 10 minutes in a scene that's about sexual failure and horse blinding," Radcliffe explained. "I was sh*t-scared and 17 when I did Equus, which is the age when you're most self-conscious. And I was very aware that a certain percentage of that audience was coming to look at my d*ck every night."
It is undeniable that Harry Potter will always be tied up with Daniel Radcliffe, considering that he spent half of his life playing the student wizard role battling he-who-should-not-be-named.
"It feels like I get recognized more now. Here's what's scary: If you were 14 when the first film came out, you'd now be almost in your 30s and could well have a child under 10 whom you're now introducing to Harry Potter," Radcliffe said. "We're already getting the next generation. That's just bizarre. It's never going away."
