Daniel Radcliffe, the iconic face of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, will be stripping eight times a week. In the first major revival of Peter Shaffer’s Equus since its Tony Award-winning run in 1975, Radcliffe will play a psychologically disturbed stable boy who gouges the eyes of the horses he tends after a sexual encounter. The controversial play opens on Feb. 27 at London’s Gielgud Theater, but the Equus promotional photos are already causing a stir.
The photos, first released by the UK’s Evening Standard, offer viewers a taste of graphic content and leave little to the imagination. One photo shows Radcliffe in jeans and co-star Joanna Christie clad only in black underwear. Others show a fully nude Radcliffe with a flawless white horse, though they are tastefully cropped. The play’s content, which includes full nudity and simulated sex acts, is dividing Harry Potter fans.
Many fans rejoiced that their favorite star chose to take on a mature and difficult role. The eye candy factor helped. Numerous posts on Daniel Radcliffe and Harry Potter websites gush about the actor’s good looks and toned physique. They also focus on the imaginative and aesthetic quality of the promo photo’s.
The play promises human darkness and will demand much from its young star. “It is a really intense, sexual and in some ways violent play,” Radcliffe told the UK’s Times Online “,and some of the audience may be shocked. People may even possibly think that I shouldn’t be doing it because of the Potter fans. But I think that would be a mistake . . . the person at the center of all the attention should always be the one to lead where the attention goes.”
The photos have sparked a debate about whether Radcliffe, who has become a role model for thousands, most of them young children and teenagers, should put himself in such a compromising position. “With a teenage daughter that has always had a crush on [Radcliffe], [the photos are] a little disturbing,” user JLW responded to an article on Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch blog. She wrote that she would be happy as long as the photos on her daughter’s wall showed a clothed Radcliffe.
The publicity is working in Radcliffe’s favor. He has not hidden the fact that he hopes the play will distance him from the Potter banner. “…To some people, I will only ever be Harry. I know that, I don’t fight it. I don’t want to distance myself from him. I’m proud of that work,” Radcliffe told Lonon’s Times Online.” But I do want to show them that I am not Harry Potter. I am an actor.”