How Daniel Radcliffe Was Cast In The Weird Al Movie
Daniel Radcliffe got his role as «Weird Al» Yankovic in the upcoming biopic WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story in a way that can only be described as weird. Radcliffe, who is best known for playing boy wizard Harry Potter for a decade beginning with 2001's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, has grown up in the public eye. Following that tentpole fantasy film franchise, he has taken on much smaller, weirder roles including playing a farting corpse in Swiss Army Man , a mad video game designer in Guns Akimbo, and the iconic literary figure Igor in Victor Frankenstein.
Despite all this, at first blush, it doesn't quite make sense why Radcliffe would be the perfect choice to play the curly-haired accordionist. Weird Al is an iconic pop culture figure, as towering as the famous artists and bands he lampoons in his ever-popular parody songs like «Eat It» (parodying Michael Jackson's «Beat It») or «The Saga Begins» (a Star Wars-inflected reworking of Don McLean's classic «American Pie»). However, his iconic nasal voice, flailing limbs, and overall wacky demeanor don't immediately call to mind the skillset of Daniel Radcliffe.
Related: Daniel Radcliffe's Weird Al Movie Was Already Faked In 2013 By Aaron Paul
Radcliffe appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to explain that got this unusual role in an even more unusual manner. It turns out that Weird Al himself was behind this casting decision, having seen Radcliffe on a 2010 episode of The Graham Norton Show. On the show, he performed the song «The Elements,» a Tom Lehrer track that lists the periodic table to the tune of Pirates of Penzance's «Major-General’s Song.” He explains that he did this in front of „Colin Farrell and a very amused Rihanna,“ and „I guess Al saw that
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