In Daniel Radcliffe’s new film, the devilishly delicious HORNS from director Alexandre Aja, Radcliffe evokes memories of his parseltongue speaking days of “Harry Potter” where now, as the bereft and vengeance seeking Ig Perrish, he grows horns, carries a pitchfork instead of waving a wand, and still speaks to and commands legions of snakes, begging the question, what is it about Daniel Radcliffe and snakes?
Although many will recall Radcliffe’s iconic “Harry Potter” and Harry’s ability to speak with CGI snakes, going into “Horns” where he would be performing with live snakes, Radcliffe himself was unsure whether or not he was comfortable with snakes and if he could work with them. It turns out he is and he can! “They were fantastic. . . It turns out I’m extremely comfortable with snakes. I may have been completely projecting human emotions onto this creature [a highly profiled python], but I became completely convinced that she is very affectionate. . .We had one scene with 100 live snakes, which was awesome!”
During the course of filming “Horns”, Radcliffe became quite knowledgeable on the species. “They get cold. Snakes aren’t cold-blooded. . .They’re poikilothermic, which means they can’t control their body temperature. So whatever temperature it is outside, they will be. They’re freezing and you’re already warm so they just love you and hug you, but in a constricting kind of way. [laughing]”
With that kind of love, however, how was it then to not only walk around with a python around one’s neck and hundreds of other snakes wriggling at one’s feet, but drive a car with the snake slithering about inside the car? For Radcliffe, “That was actually one of my favorite moments from any film that I’ve ever done. We had this one shot in the movie where I’m driving along, the snake is around my neck. I pull up, get out of the car, walk over to the cop car and do a scene with them. But I couldn’t drive with the snake around my neck because the snake latches onto the gearstick and the steering wheel. . .[W]e had to have somebody in the back of the car who would put the snake around my neck before I got out.” Pulling off the scene was no easy challenge given that a production assistant – not one of the snake wranglers on set – “had to hide down in the back of the car with a python. I remember him getting into the back of the car with the snake and us getting into our first position and I just turned around to him and was like, ‘I should probably tell him.’ I was like, ‘Corey, just so you know, I don’t have a license. I don’t drive.’ And he was like, ‘Oh that’s fine. I’ve never handled snakes before.’”
