Many may instantly recognize Daniel Radcliffe from the iconic Harry Potter franchise playing the role of the titular protagonist in the series. But despite the films being about magic and mystic arts, there were many times when there came the inevitable stunts that were physically demanding and dangerous. These were the times when he was grateful for his stunt double to get the job done.
But that was all in the distant past when he still was playing the role of The Boy Who Lived. Later in his career, he sometimes would do his stunts on his own as well. But when he was selected to play the role of a dead body in Swiss Army Man, the star took the help of another stuntman to take the heavy hits for him. But that stunt double is not just another man, it’s a photo-realistic doll of the star that is sure to scare the daylights out of people.
Daniel Radcliffe Used A Dead Body Stunt Double For Swiss Army Man
In the past, during the filming of his iconic Harry Potter films, whenever the time came to perform harrowing stunts and sequences, Daniel Radcliffe always had his stunt double David Holmes by his side. But as the series ended, so did the want for the stunt double. Nonetheless, the star still managed to maintain good relations with Holmes, especially after he suffered a spinal injury on the sets of the aforementioned franchise.
But in 2016, Radcliffe found himself in need of another body double to take an inconceivable amount of beating, for which he turned to his dead body stuntman.
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In a past interview on The Graham Norton Show, the Guns Akimbo star was promoting his then-upcoming film Swiss Army Man, in which he played the role of a literal dead body. Since his role was to be nothing more than an inanimate object, the character was to be put through the wringer, which is the reason why the life-size lifeless doll of him was made for the film.
The star actually brought the prop to the interview, where people were amazed, but horrified even more to see just how realistic it looked in the flesh. Radcliffe said:
“He’s really falling apart at this point, but he’s been sent down rivers, he got mauled by a bear, like these are all the things we did to him during filming. It’s starngely horrible.”
The star was actually seen with that dead body stunt double during the entire press tour for his then-upcoming film, which is quite scary to think about considering he had to carry a very fake yet very dead version of himself around.
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What Was Swiss Army Man About?
While at first, the premise of the film may be assumed by many to be a horror story as it features Radcliffe as nothing but a corpse, Swiss Army Man is a genuine comedy with a certain twist that will both intrigue your intellect and tickle that funny bone.
The film tells the tale of Hank, a young man who’s stranded on an uninhabited island where he is bored out of his mind and devoid of any hope of survival. Therefore, he decides to end it all by taking his life on the island. But soon after making that decision, he finds a flatulent dead body at the shore, which somehow gives him the determination to reach land no matter the cost with the body in tow.
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Swiss Army Man, streaming on Max.
