Celebrity breaking news and pictures

The young actor gets honest about shooting scenes from Harry Potter while still drunk from the night before.

Child celebrities and substance abuse could go together like green eggs and Hennessey. The stress of the spotlight, the loss of childhood – typical explanations for why entertaining youngsters may unfortunately find their way to the wrong kind of bottle. But in a recent interview with the UK’s Heat magazine, “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe offered a less common – and more reflective – take on his own troubles.

“I have a very addictive personality,” the 22-year-old actor said, attributing his drinking to an internal issue rather than a life in the limelight. “People with problems like that are very adept at hiding it. It was bad. I don't want to go into details, but I drank a lot and it was daily - I mean nightly.”

Radcliffe often prides himself on his professional work ethic on set, with or without the influence of alcohol. “I can honestly say I never drank at work on ‘Harry Potter,’” he said. “I went into work still drunk, but I never drank at work.”

The british actor declined to name specific scenes from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which was shot when he was 18, but said he could “point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes."

As his benders increased, he found himself isolating in his apartment to drink by himself. “I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone,” he told Shortlist magazine. “I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic — it wasn’t me. I’m a fun, polite person and it turned me into a rude bore.”

Now sober, Radcliffe has found a work/life balance so that he can enjoy downtime with Production-Assistant girlfriend Rosie Coker. “I just do my job, and I go home. We go out to a restaurant, but we don’t go anywhere that there’s going to be paparazzi,” he told the New York Daily News. “We don’t go to clubs, we don’t really go to bars. So, we just kind of hang out with friends and have dinner.”

Radcliffe’s design for life seems to be paying off. In a change of pace from his Potter days, he is starring in the horror film, “The Woman in Black,” which opened at number two in the box office this weekend with an estimated $21 million in North American ticket sales. Radcliffe plays the role of a young, widowed lawyer and father-of-one who sees a specter of, well, a woman in black.

Radcliffe seems to be saving his darker side for the silver screen, rather than his personal life. Maybe he's taking the chance to grow gracefully into an adult, or at least into adult roles.