Featured Image Credit: Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Topics: Daniel Radcliffe, Social Media, Mental Health, Celebrity, Harry Potter
William Morgan
Topics: Daniel Radcliffe, Social Media, Mental Health, Celebrity, Harry Potter
Despite growing up as one of the most famous child actors of all time, Daniel Radcliffe has managed to achieve something that many of his peers have struggled with - being a completely sane adult.
Sanity is not something many of us can lay a claim to in the modern age, with social media echo chambers dragging each of us down the rabbit hole of our various niche interests.
But in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Radcliffe revealed one of the major things that kept him sane and grounded after walking off the Harry Potter set, and it is sickeningly simple.
The Escape from Pretoria actor shared that he 'literally never' uses any social media platform, because he sees how it affects other people and wants to protect his mental health. “I’m not on Instagram. I’m not on any of the Twitter versions that exist. I don’t know how anyone does it,” he said.
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And not being on social media has only made it clearer for the Tony Award-winning star of stage and screen that his decision was the correct one.
He told Rolling Stone: "Honestly, it seems so stressful. I’m stressed enough. I don’t think that would do wonders for my mental health.”
He shared the honest insight in between performances of his new Broadway one-man show, Every Brilliant Thing, where he plays the son of a suicidal mother who tries to show her all the reasons why life is worth living.
Radcliffe said an experience he had backstage in the run-up to opening night, March 12, at the Hudson Theatre in New York, had only confirmed his decision to avoid the likes of X, Instagram, and Facebook as the right one.
In what must have been a bemusing conversation to overhear for the chronically well-adjusted 36-year-old, he shared: “I was just in our rehearsal room, and everyone was having a conversation about bricks or apps that keep them off their phone."
But missing out on this common part of modern life does still weigh heavily on the Guns Akimbo actor, who welcomed his first child with partner Erin Darke two years ago.
Radcliffe said: “I’m sure this is going to be the thing that, when my son is older (will) make him think of me as unspeakably old and decrepit. But yeah, I can’t do it."
Though the actor did note that he isn't completely offline, just that he avoids the heated discourse that pervades all social media.
When he was on the spicy chicken wing show, Hot Ones, he opened up a bit more about his reasoning for staying off socials, saying: “I would love to say there's some sort of intellectual, well-thought-out reason for this because I considered getting a Twitter.
"And I 100 per cent know that if I did, you all would be waking up to stories like, 'Dan Radcliffe gets into fight with random person on Twitter'.”
But perhaps Radcliffe's avoidance of the public sphere is unsurprising, after being one of the most famous people in the world and no doubt receiving several nasty comments online. He admitted: “When I was younger, not anymore thank God, I would like to look up comments about myself on the internet and read s*** like that."
Rather than going off the deep end, Radcliffe made the mentally healthy decision to just avoid it, adding: "That is an insane and bad thing to do. And to me, like Twitter and everything, it just sort of feels like an extension of that.
"Unless I'm going to go on to just read all nice things about myself, which also feels like another kind of unhealthy thing to do.”