Daniel Radcliffe spent a decade as the face of Harry Potter on screen, but the actor says he may not watch HBO's new television adaptation when it arrives this Christmas. His reason has nothing to do with the show itself — it is that he barely watches television at all.
Radcliffe addressed the question in an interview with the Associated Press at the New York premiere of Steps, Netflix's animated film in which he voices the Prince. Asked whether he will watch the series, he said: "I don't know if I will, honestly. I've been in a lot of Harry Potter already, and also not even because I don't, like, I don't watch any TV. I haven't seen Breaking Bad; I haven't seen Mad Men. I haven't seen some of the real classics. So, you know, it's just, eight hours is a lot of anything to watch."
His protectiveness toward his successor runs through the rest of the interview. Radcliffe has made a point of not publicly advising Dominic McLaughlin, the young actor taking over the role, and he explained that the silence is deliberate — anything he says becomes a question McLaughlin gets asked in his own interviews.
"I'm really truly in the business of not giving Dominic advice. He's got it. He doesn't need any advice from me," Radcliffe said. "If I say something to you, then the next interview people have with him, they'll be like, 'Oh, and Dan said you should do this,' and I'm like, I don't want to haunt this poor child through interviews, so I have no advice for him. He's going to be amazing, and you know, I hope that I will, I think I will, get to meet him someday — and I'm very excited about that."
The stance is consistent with how Radcliffe has handled the handover so far. He played Harry across all eight films between 2001 and 2011, growing up inside the role in a way few actors ever have, and he previously wrote McLaughlin a letter offering his support and best wishes. He has repeatedly asked that the new young cast be allowed to make the roles their own without being measured against the original films in every interview.
The new series stars McLaughlin as Harry alongside Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, with the first season adapting Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Season 1 of Harry Potter premieres on December 25, 2026, on HBO and HBO Max, with its eight episodes rolling out weekly, and a second season has already been confirmed.
