Daniel Radcliffe Talks Oscars Diversity, Alan Rickman at Sundance

Daniel Radcliffe is currently busy promoting his latest project, Swiss Army Man, at the Sundance Film Festival. Yesterday, new stills were released for the film, and we received the official film synopsis. At the film’s premiere, Radcliffe discussed the controversy surrounding the lack of diversity in the 2016 Academy Award nominations and the subsequent boycott of the ceremony by stars such as Will Smith and Spike Lee. He said,

I suppose in a way it’s already been effective because there has been a reaction in terms of the Academy working on changing their policy. It’s the start of a conversation that feels like we shouldn’t need anymore because particularly in this industry, we think of ourselves as being liberal [and] very progressive. We need to put our money where our mouth is.

The actor also spoke about his late Potter co-star Alan Rickman, saying,

A lot of the older actors on those films had known me since I was very young, and so had Alan. On the third film we had a lot of stuff to do together. And he just treated me like an actor. And the feeling of getting that respect from somebody who’s that much older and better than you really empowers you.

Radcliffe praised the two directors of the film, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who are perhaps best known for directing the music video for DJ Snake and Lil John’s hit song, “Turn Down For What.”

They’re the kind of directors that, if you just talk about their ideas, if you say, ‘In the “Turn Down For What” video, everyone’s going to hump stuff, and then they’ll go through the floor,’ you’d be like, that sounds weird! But it’s similar to this story—you think that sounds odd, but it really works in ways that it shouldn’t.

Check out some pictures of Radcliffe at the premiere below:

Are you looking forward to watching Dan in Swiss Army Man? Let us know your thoughts!