HBO's Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe Compares The Adaptation To Sherlock Holmes

Not only is Daniel Radcliffe not planning to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he's more than happy to pass his magic wand on to a younger performer.

During his press tour for the new season of his anthology series "Miracle Workers," Radcliffe confirmed that, no, he's definitely not going to show up in the announced "Harry Potter" reboot series heading to Max. "I certainly haven't," the actor said to Access Hollywood when asked if he'd had any discussions about joining the first television series of the franchise. "I think it's very much like they're going for a new series," he continued. "There would be somebody else playing Harry. So I think it would be very weird for me to show up."

To really drive the point home, Radcliffe compared the character of "Harry Potter" to another iconic British role that's been inhabited by a ton of different actors. "I'm very excited to see what other people do with it," Radcliffe went on. "The comparison I've made is to a story like 'Sherlock Holmes.' I think the 'Potter' series of books was always gonna be bigger than one interpretation or one franchise, so it'll be cool to see the torch get passed on."

Radcliffe is one hundred percent right in saying that his presence would be absolutely baffling in this new "Harry Potter" series. That's not to say Radcliffe isn't always a welcome presence, but tossing him into the reboot while a younger and presumably unknown actor tries to take the reigns and play Harry would be bizarre, distracting, and a weird example of fan service that nobody even wants in the first place. 

As fans know, Radcliffe, along with his co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, stepped into the lead role in one of the most popular franchises of all time at a very young age, discovered after doing small parts onstage and in films like "David Copperfield" and "The Tailor of Panama." Booking the role of the Boy who Lived, though, skyrocketed him to enormous and intense fame — and Radcliffe has been open about his struggles playing Harry, even quitting drinking after he admitted he filmed a decent portion of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" intoxicated. That aside, though, Radcliffe's performance as Harry is going to loom large over whatever (probably very talented) kid ends up cast as the Harry for a new generation. Why would you saddle that boy with Radcliffe's presence in a reboot, just so people can make comparisons?

Pretty much everything, actually. Radcliffe has done an incredible job of diversifying his post-"Potter" roles; even while he was still playing the boy wizard, he made the daring move of appearing nude onstage in a production of "Equus" that ran on both London's West End and Broadway. Since he last appeared as Harry Potter in 2011, Radcliffe has kept extremely busy — and he seems to have dabbled in absolutely every genre and style along the way.

Throughout the years, Radcliffe has done everything from play Beat poet Allan Ginsberg ("Kill Your Darlings"), try romantic comedies as a young man in love with his best friend ("What If?"), serve as the Igor to James McAvoy's Victor Frankenstein ("Victor Frankenstein," obviously), and take on the persona of a manic billionaire who's happy to kidnap people to get his way ("The Lost City"). In 2022, he teamed up with beloved parody songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic to play the singer in a completely made-up biopic chronicling his life and career, and since 2019, he's starred on and executive produced "Miracle Workers." He's also still active on stage to boot, appearing in a 2023 revival of "Merrily We Roll Along" among a ton of other credits. At this point, Radcliffe has put a healthy amount of distance between himself and Harry Potter, and his audiences are better for it.

Okay, so Daniel Radcliffe isn't going to join the "Harry Potter" reboot. That's all well and good. But you may be asking yourself, as so many already have — why are we even doing a "Harry Potter" reboot?

In April of this year, it was announced that Warner Bros. was developing a television series based on Joanne Rowling's book series, which would span seven seasons — giving each book its chance to shine. This sounds great at face value, especially for fans disappointed by the movie franchise's weird omissions and additions (Peeves the Poltergeist doesn't even appear, but there's time for the Weasley family's entire home to burn to the ground). There's a lot to unpack here, though... and we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Rowling's crusade against transgender women, which the author has deeply committed to continuing since first making derogatory comments about the marginalized community in 2020. (Radcliffe has pointedly spoken out against Rowling.) This makes returning to the world of "Harry Potter" pretty icky, and that's not even taking the material into consideration; fans have re-evaluated some of the themes and depictions in "Harry Potter" after Rowling revealed her bigoted views, reconsidering everything from the goblins to the house-elves to certain character names.

Radcliffe left the "Potter" franchise behind; maybe we should too. Warner Bros. likely won't change its approach, though, so we'll just have to see who they find to play the boy wizard, knowing he won't have to compete with his predecessor.