--- title: Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview: What We Learned description: Daniel Radcliffe spoke about how the Harry Potter fandom is never going away in a new interview for Playboy's November issue. canonical: https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-20T22:09:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:52.410Z og:title: What We Learned From Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview og:description: The Harry Potter star opens up his own Chamber of Secrets og:url: https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b3cf7264279b7e8/69886918cd1bba78cd6fdbaa/daniel-radcliffe.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: daniel-radcliffe og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What We Learned From Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview twitter:description: The Harry Potter star opens up his own Chamber of Secrets twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b3cf7264279b7e8/69886918cd1bba78cd6fdbaa/daniel-radcliffe.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What We Learned From Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 20, 2015 10:09 PM UTC  Actor Daniel Radcliffe poses for a portrait in San Diego on July 11, 2015. Actor Daniel Radcliffe poses for a portrait in San Diego on July 11, 2015.Maarten de Boer—Getty Images  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 20, 2015 10:09 PM UTC Daniel Radcliffe got real about the realities of being a teenage boy on the set of Harry Potter and the series’ everlasting fandom in a new [interview for Playboy’s November issue](http://www.playboy.com/articles/20q-daniel-radcliffe). And he spoke quite openly about the fact that nothing from Madame Pomfrey made him immune to the normal distractions that teenage boys experience. The actor responded to a question about masturbation by explaining that he always tried to stay focused at work. “Yeah, I was like every other teenager in that sense…But not when I was on set. I wasn’t going, ‘When is Alan Rickman going to nail this scene so I can run back to my trailer?,'” he said. “It would have been embarrassing to walk back on set and look the dignitaries of British acting royalty in the eye, knowing what I’d been doing.” When asked about why the magical allure of the wizarding world hasn’t faded, the 26-year-old actor said that it’s because the series is almost universally loved. “There are people who don’t want to read it, but the number of people who actively dislike it is very low,” Radcliffe said. “The books are great, and they came along at the perfect moment, when there was a fear, because of the rise of computer games, that reading was going to become a thing of the past. When kids suddenly found these books, it was something everyone could get behind as a global populace.” Radcliffe has given himself high marks when dealing with the (sometimes intense) global fanbase he and his co-stars attract when out in public. “I’m better at saying no than Rupert Grint. He ended up going back to a fan’s house because he couldn’t say no to anything they asked. That’s when it’s gone too far,” he commented. ### Harry Potter Illustrated Edition Illustrations  Harry Potter Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Hermione Granger Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Ron Weasley Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Draco Malfoy Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Rubeus Hagrid Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Hogwarts Grand Hall Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Dragon Alley Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Hagrid Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  Harry Potter Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  An owl Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.  The Golden Snitch Jim Kay—Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/"},"headline":"What We Learned From Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview","datePublished":"2015-10-20T22:09:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:52.410Z","description":"The Harry Potter star opens up his own Chamber of Secrets","url":"https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","celebrities","Harry Potter","Actors","film","Movie","Playboy","daniel radcliffe"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b3cf7264279b7e8/69886918cd1bba78cd6fdbaa/daniel-radcliffe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b3cf7264279b7e8/69886918cd1bba78cd6fdbaa/daniel-radcliffe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"daniel-radcliffe","caption":"Danielle Radcliffe","creditText":"Maarten de Boer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4080429/daniel-radcliffe-playboy-interview/","name":"What We Learned From Daniel Radcliffe's Playboy Interview"}}]}] ```