Merry Christmas to one and all!

Meeting Daniel Radcliffe

Just recently, friends of mine introduced me to Daniel Radcliffe. Yes, the very man, of Harry Potter fame. "Please call me Dan, Mary" is the first thing that he said to me. "I will call you Dan", was my reply.

 Dan has a firm handshake and his sapphire-blue eyes are even more striking in real life, than they are on film. His current long-locks hairstyle is not his idea and not even his hair! He has had hair extensions for the part of Igor, the assistant to Dr. Frankenstein. Dan joked that his skin is naturally pale enough of the role, and that the make-up artists use a foundation on him called, 'rice-paper'.

The re-make of Mary Shelley's greatest work is being filmed in London at the moment. Mary Shelley, however never created the character of Igor. The hunchback helper of Dr Frankenstein makes no appearance in her horror story. Igor was the creation of film-makers and inserted into the script, as a companion to Dr Frankenstein, to make him seem a less lonely figure. But the deformed helper of Dr Frankenstein has evolved more and more to the point where in the current version, the story is told from the perspective of Igor.

I was quite impressed with Daniel Radcliffe, or 'Dan' as he prefers. People swarm around him all the time, and he remains unflappable, never reacts as though he's pestered and always is the thorough gentleman. I had kept hearing reports that Dan was polite and kind. And it was great to find out that this is true. One such fan is Raymond Arroyo. As a fellow actor, Raymond met up with Dan in June, and congratulated the young Brit on his stellar acting in The Cripple of Inishmaan. Raymond did his classical acting training under Stella Adler, and he esteems Daniel Radcliffe's considerable abilities.