Daniel Radcliffe Discusses ‘A Young Doctor’s Notebook and Other Stories’

Daniel Radcliffe Interview on A Young Doctor's Notebook
Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm in ‘A Young Doctor’s Notebook’ (Photo Courtesy of Ovation)

Daniel Radcliffe took time away from working on “The Cripple of Inishmaan” on Broadway to talk about the critically acclaimed series A Young Doctor’s Notebook and Other Stories, based on Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov’s writings. Chatting about the series live via satellite during the summer Television Critics Association press tour, Radcliffe opened up about his character in the series, working with Jon Hamm, and the initial attraction of the limited TV series.

Details on season 2 (courtesy of Ovation): “This new season finds our protagonist young doctor (Radcliffe) in evermore challenging predicaments – emotionally and physically. His addiction reaches new and desperate extremes, while his relationship with Pelageya (Rosie Cavaliero) is challenged by the introduction of a beautiful aristocrat, Natasha (Margaret Clunie). Despite counsel from his older and wiser self (Hamm), the doctor plunges into a state of panic. And in the backdrop, the battle between the Bolsheviks and the Russian army wages on; not only producing a great divide in loyalties, but also delivering many gruesome casualties to the over-taxed country hospital’s doorstep.”

Season two of A Young Doctor’s Notebook and Other Stories will premiere on Ovation on Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 10pm ET/PT.

Last season you were in a bathtub with Jon Hamm. This season we’ve seen a clip of you two dancing. 
What’s the vibe like on set between the two of you?

Daniel Radcliffe: “On the whole this series is an incredibly fun one to film. Jon is a very funny guy and we are very irreverent, and yeah, we have a lot of fun. Doing like the bath scene in the first series was one that we kind of, as soon as we both got in it, we were like, ‘Oh, man, this photo is going to go everywhere!’ So you were aware of the bizarreness of the situation. 

But actually, like, dancing with Jon in this series was great fun. I had to dip him at one point, which was not easy. And, you know, yeah, we got a couple of lifts in there as well. So, yeah, it’s incredibly fun working with him. I remember there was one sequence in the first series before we actually had a stunt coordinator who had been assigned for the show, and so for the first three days we didn’t have a stunt coordinator but we had a fight scene to do. And Jon essentially just choreographed this fight scene himself in about 15 minutes, and it was funny. It was sort of action-packed and kind of frenetic and everything we needed it to be. So, yeah, I think his experience working and directing Mad Men as well means he’s sort of a brilliant technical actor as well as being very good fun to hang around with.”

What did you think about the reaction to the photo of the bathtub scene?

Daniel Radcliffe: “It was as expected, I suppose. I mean, I think we definitely knew that would be a shot to pique people’s interest. The funny thing about that scene, actually, was that it wasn’t a particularly funny scene. It was very much a scene where there’s a huge plot point in that episode is being established, and it’s actually quite tragic. So I think it was – and I think the writers will admit this as well – is that they were very much just going, ‘This isn’t a very funny scene. We need to do something to make it funnier. We’ll put them in a bath.’ So I think that was kind of the thought behind that.
”

What’s it like to look at Jon Hamm and think of him as an older version of you? And what about the fact that as you get older, your character grows six inches?


Daniel Radcliffe: “I mean, it’s obviously incredibly flattering, and it was incredibly flattering that he suggested me to play the young him, which is an incredible compliment. But I think with the height difference, we were just like the show is so crazy anyway that people are either going to just go with it and be enjoying the show so much that they don’t care about that. Or if they get hung up on that, then there’s going to be plenty of other logical problems that they are going to find with us, I’m sure. So it definitely wasn’t something we lingered on too much in terms of worrying about that. I think it was then about just finding the points where we could find parallels between me and Jon and just link our characters together. So there’s a little fidgety tick that both Jon and I’s characters have when we are nervous and we fiddle with our ear, which kind of links us together. And, then, we also do a couple of match cuts where it’s sort of…I think in the first series it’s when I’m lighting a cigarette and then on the third strike of the match, it changes from Jon to me. So we do visual stuff to connect the two and hopefully keep reminding people that we are, in fact, the same person.
”

This is based on Russian writings. Is there something different about the Russian sensibility than a British sensibility or an American sensibility in the material?


Daniel Radcliffe: “I don’t know. I think, actually, there’s something kind of similar about the Russian sensibility to the English sense of humor and finding comedy out of incredibly dark places. And there’s also a certain amount of joy taken in the bleakness of Russia and of England and, sort of, in the stories I think we tell about ourselves. There’s a certain degree of reveling in the misery of it all. I think those are two things that mean it translates very well from taking a Russian story and having it adaptable and performed by English people. I think that’s something we kind of relate to and get. 

And while I don’t think it’s a particularly American sensibility, I do think that America loves dark comedy. Like, I’m doing an incredibly dark comedy on Broadway at the moment and people are loving it. So I don’t think there’s any sense of it being too dark or anything for people over here because, in my experience, you’ve got the same twisted sense of humor as I have.
”

You’ve been doing a wide range of projects showing off your diversity as an actor. Do you do this consciously to take away all first thoughts of Harry Potter or is it just because of the joy of doing such diverse projects?

Daniel Radcliffe: “It really is about that, about the fact that that’s the most exciting way of doing my job, I think, is to try and do as many different styles of film [and] of TV shows and theater. There’s a part of me that I think it is connected to Potter but maybe not in the way that everyone thinks where everyone kind of just thinks, ‘Oh, he’s doing all of this to put that behind him and get away from it.’ 

And, actually, I think what it is more is because I played one character for such a long time – and particularly towards the end of that ten year period – I started seeing other British actors (Aaron Johnson and Eddie Redmayne and Ben Whishaw) and lots of people I look up to who go off and do loads of different projects and try lots of different things. I think there’s a little bit of envy and it sort of builds up inside yourself, that desire to just try as many different things as possible. So, yeah, I guess now that I’m in a position that I can do that, I’m trying to while the going is good.”

Daniel Radcliffe Young Doctor's Notebook Interview
Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm in ‘A Young Doctor’s Notebook’ (Photo Courtesy of Ovation)

Does this type of short order series make it more likely for you to consider a TV project fitting in among the theater and film projects you are working on?


Daniel Radcliffe: “I mean, definitely. I think that’s the thing with this. The writers of this show, who are three brilliant individuals, are fantastically clever and funny, but they all say that, ‘If you want to get a TV show greenlit, tell them you have Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe for four weeks over the summer.’ He said that as soon as they had us and we’d agreed to do it, and we both had this very tight window that we could do it in, everything just moved very quickly. 

So I think for us, for this show, it would have been impossible to do it if it filmed for any longer than four weeks, and I think we condensed Jon’s stuff into just about two and a half weeks of the shoot.

It’s a very intense thing, and for both of us – especially with all of his other commitments that he has for TV – it wouldn’t have been possible for us to do this if it was any longer than four episodes, really. I think there’s also something nice about the idea of doing this show because, you know, if this show had been made in America by and American network originally, it would have been the case that they would have had to have at least 12 or 13 episodes at a minimum. And the book doesn’t really lend itself to that. These are short stories to begin with, and they are something that to pad them out too much would have been…I don’t think would have worked. I think it offers some freedom in the British system of what we can do, and I think some interesting things are happening now in British TV. But I also don’t think there’s nowhere near the, if you will pardon me for being vulgar, the money that is in American TV is not something that British TV has at the moment. I was having this conversation with a friend last night and a lot of times TV shows over here or an episode of a TV thing is like an one hour long beautiful indie movie. They are all individually amazing works of art.”

You grew up in the world of U.K. TV. From your point of view what makes a good U.S. adaptation of a U.K. show and what is less successful?


Daniel Radcliffe: “That’s an interesting question. I think the only show that I immediately comes to mind is The Office, and I think what’s interesting about that show’s  American incarnation is that I actually now prefer the American Office to the British Office, and that’s something I never thought I would say. But, well, I was 14. But I do think that once they moved beyond that point in the first or second series, maybe, where they were still doing episodes that had sort of been done in the British Office and they were just able to establish their own things. Their characters were all developed in different and new and original ways that were entirely of the American series, that’s when it really comes into its own for me and becomes a brilliant, exciting series. So I guess it’s that thing of I don’t think that you need to be rigidly [an] adaptation. I think always in adaptation, you have to take things into account for who your audience is and how that will make a difference. And so I think, in terms of adapting British things, I would say don’t pay too much mind to the Britishness of it all because we made it for us, I guess, would be the argument there.
”

Coming back for season two, what was that experience like for you because it seems like that’s the first time you’ve come back to a character after a time away since Harry Potter?

Daniel Radcliffe: “Right. In that sense, I suppose it felt very familiar. There was something about going back and seeing the same crew and a lot of the same cast, obviously. The continuity of that was very reassuring and comforting. It’s always nice when you get to work with people because so often in the industry you make a film with somebody and you become really close, and then you go, ‘Okay. Well, you know, we’ll…,’ you don’t see each other as much as you should, and it’s hard to keep up. So it’s always nice when a job brings you back together. And, yeah, it was lovely coming back for the second series. I think the writers did a really fantastic job in expanding that world because, obviously, the big difference between the first series is [that is is] probably the only show set in Russia in 1917, which features almost no mentions of the Revolution whatsoever. And so in the second series, their big choice was to bring that history into the series and have some fun with it.
”

Playing a doctor, do you ever cringe at the different things that medical people did back then or perhaps they are still doing today? Have you visited any ERs?

Daniel Radcliffe: “Well, the most revealing conversations I had was with a friend of mine’s younger brother who is just out of or just about to leave medical school and was really in the same place that my character was in in the first series of having going from learning about all of this and studying it and watching people do it to actually being responsible for people’s lives yourself. And it is terrifying. When we were talking to our medical consultant about the differences in surgery then and now, it is quite terrifying. I suppose in this series we are just at the point where going to the doctor was more likely to help you than hurt you, but before the 1900s if you went to a doctor, they were just as likely to do something to you that might kill you as they were to help you. So, yeah, there’s a lot of grim humor that I think we’ve got, particularly with the tooth-pulling scene and the amputation scene. And there’s a few in the second series that are just as, hopefully, hilariously grotesque.
”

J.K. Rowling posted a new Harry Potter story and she had an adult Harry at a Quidditch World Cup. Careerwise, is it something you would do? Would you reprise the role as an adult?


Daniel Radcliffe: “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t. My inclination is to say no because this is… [It’s] also a question that is not even a hypothetical at the moment, really. I mean, what she’s written, I haven’t read it yet. I am going to read it. But it is, as I understand, a very, very short piece that I’m not sure is, of itself, worthy of adaptation to film. I don’t know. He’s at least, sort of, 12 years older than I am now. So, you know, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that for a long time, I’m hoping.”

– By Fred Topel