Daniel Radcliffe talks learning to play accordion and ‘the weirdest scene’ in Al Yankovic movie

Daniel Radcliffe likes making films for the weirdos, as he fondly puts it, and his latest effort as the titular character in “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” is one that will see the actor masterfully disappear behind a bizarre Hawaiian shirt-clad accordion player.

For Radcliffe, this role is unlike anything he’s ever done before and he felt “more nervous, even though you’ll see I’m not playing Al per se. It’s quite nerve-wracking. I’m excited for people to see it.”

The actor sat down for an exclusive interview at a downtown hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival.

“The tone of the film is one of the more particularly strange ones I’ve done. It’s a biopic, but not really because very quickly it turns into something much more insane than that. I’ve played a lot of real people before, both living and dead, but this is the first time I’ve ever played someone that I’m kind of a fan of coming into it.”

“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” follows the rebellious cult singer and his meteoric rise from a humble accordion player to a rich and famous musician who replaces the lyrics of popular songs with hilarious new ones.

The film, which premiered at TIFF and won the People’s Choice Award in the Midnight Madness category, is over the top, self-aware and makes fun of itself — the biopic is simply a parody of the artist, which is quite meta. Almost nothing in the film actually happened, save for the parody songs. That’s exactly what makes this film edgy and entertaining.

It’s certainly a role you’ve never seen Radcliffe in before. He taps into his comedic side with earnestness, proving he’s always had stellar comic timing — and the big, curly Yankovic wig and the loud shirts simply add to his performance.

After his “Harry Potter” days, the London-born actor started to branch out into unconventional roles that are, for a lack of a better word, weird. He played a farting corpse in the incredibly entertaining “Swiss Army Man”; a man who mysteriously grows horns after his girlfriend’s death in “Horns” and a nerdy video game developer who wakes up to find guns bolted to his hands in “Guns Akimbo.”

The 33-year-old doesn’t mind that he has a reputation for channelling offbeat characters. In fact, it’s perhaps his attachment to such films that landed him a role as Weird Al.

“I think me and Al are both quite sincere, earnest people and what you see is what you get. We both really have an appreciation for weird and the fact that we get to do these jobs and the fact that somebody’s paying us both to do the things that we love, I think, gives us a real appreciation for how incredibly lucky we are to be doing that.”

It’s their eccentricities that connect Yankovic and Radcliffe, the actor said. “There’s a streak of something weird and feral running through, which I like to hopefully think is the overlap.

“I do think that what Al and I both have in common is that we’ve both had fairly big, creative platforms, and are able to kind of sneak some quite weird stuff through,” he said.

According to the actor, “the weirdest scene is the drug trip sequence where I burst out of a giant glowing egg naked, except for this electric guitar while covered in slime. That was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, but that was great. Getting to work with Evan (Rachel Wood) and getting to do all the crazy love scenes as we document Al’s relationship with Madonna … that was really fun and crazy.”

“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” is directed by Eric Appel from a script he co-wrote with Yankovic. Having Yankovic on set was both reassuring as well as nerve-wracking for Radcliffe.

“When you see the film, you’ll see how far the version of Al in the film is from real Al … so that gives you a lot of freedom too; I didn’t have to do a perfect impersonation of him all the time.”

The actor insisted on learning the accordion, which is a difficult instrument to play. “It was so nerve-wracking having him (on set) mostly for the musical things because those are the things that you really want to get right.”

As uncanny as the roles may be, the actor is far from it. Despite his massive success, he seems down to earth and extremely polite. So how do roles that are out of character satisfy him in his creative endeavours?

“‘Harry Potter’ was obviously amazing training for how film sets work and how to be around the camera and all that stuff. Doing ‘Miracle Workers’ and learning about comedy with some of the actors that I’ve been able to work with and also moving at the pace (of) ‘Swiss Army Man’ or ‘Kill Your Darlings’ … this film was all of those things,” he said.

“There’s outside your comfort zone and then there are things you’re wrong for. As an actor, you’ve kind of got to be able to differentiate; when am I saying no to something because I don’t think I’m right for it and when am I saying no to something out of fear? I think that’s a good thing that you have to keep an eye out for.”

Marriska Fernandes is a Toronto-based entertainment reporter and film critic. She is a freelance contributor for the Star’s Culture section. Follow her on Twitter: @marrs_fers

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