 FOR the late Gerald Campion, it was a role he never quite escaped; Dennis Waterman managed to get away from his. Both had played the most famous schoolboys of their eras. Campion in the 1950s was cast in a long-running television series as Billy Bunter, "the Fat Owl of the Remove". Amazingly, he was 29 when he first got the role but when it ended in 1961, Campion found he had been type-cast. He ended up running a restaurant business. Dennis Waterman was luckier, taking the role of William Brown in a 1960s TV version of Just William. He went on in adult life to find other roles in series like The Sweeney and Minder. Just what the future holds for 14-year-old Daniel Radcliffe who is playing Harry Potter for the third time in the new movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban remains to be seen. Potter, unlike Bunter and William Brown, is a world-wide phenomenon with Radcliffe now established as the universal face of the bespectacled schoolboy wizard of the books. But Radcliffe refuses to be overawed by the responsibility. He even refuses to be drawn too much as to whether he will make acting his career. "I really like doing it," is all he will admit. "Working with Gary Oldman on the new film was unbelievable and the actual work was fantastic." He delivers an enigmatic grin. "In a way, I don't really think about a career because it is too much fun. Everyone says jobs aren't supposed to be fun. Some people call this a job. Whatever happens, happens. I don't think about it that much." He has to admit, however, that Harry has changed his life. "You know, people who have known me for years have started to call me Harry but people I meet on the street actually call me Dan. "That is confusing - people who don't know know you seem to know you better than people who do! Very confusing. "It is kind of weird as I have actually started to talk about Harry as if he is another person that I know, like one of my friends. Which is actually quite worrying." He even feels like Harry sometimes. "In certain things I do I do feel like him. I can't say I feel isolated from people as I am surrounded by huge amounts of people every day. |