Daniel Radcliffe will never fully distance himself from Harry Potter. He will never be greeted with “Oh my God, it’s Abigail Fairfax from The Lost City!” For better or worse, it will always be “Oh my God, it’s Harry Potter.” But give credit where credit is due, the guy has taken on a great deal of deranged roles, which we’ll rank here.
The minute that one of my friends told me that this movie was “weird,” “disconcerting,” and “maybe terrible but I’m not sure,” I immediately knew that I needed to watch it. It didn’t disappoint. Radcliffe plays a maybe-incarnation of Satan who inexplicably grows horns. He also gains powers that impel everyone to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets to him. But that’s not all! Radcliffe leans into the dark humor and absurdity of it all as his character begins gleefully setting evil pet snakes on everyone who wrongs him. It only gets more demonic from there.
Radcliffe is carving out a niche for himself in Hollywood – and that niche is “eccentric billionaire sociopath.” I mean, if you’re trying to distance yourself from Harry Potter, then that’s the way to go. And oh, does he go. While this dramedy-thriller about musicians is meh overall, Radcliffe’s performance makes the watch worthwhile. Furious, unfettered, and passionate to a fault, he truly makes you believe that close-up magicians should all be exterminated.
If you were online in 2016, then you heard about this movie, which I refuse to spoil in its entirety. Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse that farts with abandon and pops regular magical boners that always point north. He also seems to be having a lot of fun! That’s all you need to know, really. Watching this movie, you get the sense that Radcliffe always secretly wanted to let one rip during the Potter movies but wasn’t allowed to due to Maggie Smith’s death glares. Nevertheless, this movie also manages to make lovely statements about loneliness, intimacy, anxiety, and platonic love, even while Radcliffe’s decaying corpse rapidly shoots objects out of his mouth with the ferocity of an AK-47.
This is the rare unhinged Daniel Radcliffe performance in which he does not actually play a person who is unhinged. Rather, the situation around him is. This movie, which is based off a true story, follows Radcliffe’s Yossi Ghinsberg as he fights of fire ants, jaguars, and starvation to escape the Bolivian jungle. The actor is pushed to the brink and truly appears unhinged as he chows down on monkey brains to survive. You have never seen Harry Potter look so skinny, miserable, and disheveled before. He even lost 14 pounds for the role! Sure, that’s just another Tuesday in Hollywood, but it’s exceptionally noticeable in this case. Overall, Radcliffe’s performance in Jungle showcases the guy doing his finest, most frazzled work. In a word: Unhinged!
This role solidified Daniel Radcliffe’s second career as a go-to character actor for eccentric and possibly murderous rich guys with Napoleonic Complexes. Like a shorter Elon Musk, Radcliffe’s Fairfax throws tantrum after unhinged tantrum and generally acts like a child. But Radcliffe is also hilarious as he’s spewing wildly deranged nonsense and demanding that poor people cater to his every whim. Elon Musk, not so much. Just see his widely panned SNL hosting gig for proof. In any case, I hope we see many more future unhinged Daniel Radcliffe performances, because this man is singlehandedly making psychopaths sexy again.
