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Daniel Radcliffe wants to play Iggy Pop: 'We've got similar, gnarly, sort of slightly strange, skinny bodies'

Actor says he and The Stooges frontman have 'similar, gnarly, skinny bodies'

Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith
Friday 15 August 2014 14:28 BST
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(Getty Images)

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Head shot of Kelly Rissman

Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

Daniel Radcliffe: he likes dressing up as Spider-Man "purely out of childish wish fulfilment," he’s pretty sure he’s a feminist, he doesn’t like his Potter performances, but now he’s showing a real “Lust For Life” – he wants to play Iggy Pop.

Punk fan Radcliffe told US radio DJ Eric J Lawrence that he's often said he could see himself playing the "Real Wild Child", "just 'cause we've got similar, gnarly sort of slightly strange, skinny bodies," he said.

Radcliffe, displaying a new kind of "Raw Power", appeared on Lawrence’s KCRW show as part of the Guest DJ Project, and proved himself more than worthy of playing The Passenger” singer with his choice of tracks for the show, which included Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, and the Sex Pistols’ EMI.

He told the show he thought the Sex Pistols were "as important as the Beatles in terms of what they did for British music", adding that "people are very dismissive of punk, it’s easy to say that they are all stupid and sort of thuggish, but John Lydon is smarter than you or me, or anyone. He is not somebody I would like to get into a debate about anything".

Radcliffe said his introduction to the bands he loves today came from different, unexpected parts of his day to day life on the set of Harry Potter.

"It was my dad who introduced me to Bowie and T-Rex, my dresser on Potter, Will, who introduced me to punk, and then actually my driver on Potter who drove me for 10 years as well on most films, was a guy called Peter who introduced me to the 60s, basically."

But when he turned 14 and listened to The Libertines’ Up The Bracket, he realised they were "the Sex Pistols of my generation".

That said, the actor admitted that former Libertines front-man Pete Doherty could make him feel shame in one lyric: "It does make me blush every time I wear a cap around a lot, like a baseball bat. There is a line in the song ["Time for Heroes"] where he says ‘There’s fewer more distressing sights than that of an English man in a baseball cap’.

"So always, every time I hear that line I go, ‘Damn you, Pete, for writing that and making me feel shame’."

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