A lot has been made of Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter, in case you've been under a rock the past decade) going nude in a play in London.
I'm not posting his picture here (he's 17!!). Nor am I going to give him kudos for going nude, as some have done. If his goal was to "lose his Harry Potter innocence" by letting his business hang out on stage, well, then it's a stunt.
But, if he took the character -- nudity and all -- because it was compelling and different from Harry AND he is able to pull it off with good acting (i.e., when watching the play you didn't think, "oh, there's Harry Potter naked" but took the nudity as part of the drama and character) then kudos to him.
One of my favorite actors, Ewan McGregor, frequently does nude scenes in his movies and I admit I find him excessively attractive. But what makes his better movies notable is not his nudity but his ability to become the character he is playing. If Mr. Radcliffe can pull that off he will have a great career.
(And if he can do it nude, well, that's just a bonus).
1 comment:
All good points. I think I'm quick to join the kudos bandwagon for what may seem like extremely shallow reasons but make sense to me nonetheless ... I'm all about pushing limits and challenging mass perception via the taboo, so having a 17-year-old former child star run around naked on stage because an acting part calls for it seems like a good thing to me.
But if he's just trying to shed an image through blatant shock value (Britney's bald head, anybody?) than I agree with you that there are certainly other ways to do so.
And I'm with you on Ewan ... he's amazing!
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