She now tops the list of Britain's most highly paid women, the Mail on Sunday reported. Rowling has another reason to be in a good mood. 'Having seen Dan Radcliffe's screen test, I don't think Chris Columbus could have found a better Harry,' she said.

Rowling, whose four 'Potter' books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide since 1997, was likewise thrilled with the choice. 'Then Dan walked into the room and we all knew we had found Harry.

'The process was intense, and there were times when we felt we would never find an individual who embodied the complex spirit and depth of Harry Potter. 'We saw so many enormously talented kids in the search for Harry,' Columbus said in a statement. He's not the Harry Potter we imagined.Īt one point, young Hollywood actors such as Jonathan Lipnicki of 'Jerry Maguire,' Frankie Muñoz of 'Malcolm in the Middle' and Liam Aiken of 'Stepmom' were rumored to be in the running for the highly coveted role of Harry.īut Radcliffe - who also has a small role in an upcoming John Boorman film, 'The Tailor of Panama,' a John le Carré spy thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Jamie Lee Curtis - won over the 'Potter' producers the moment they clapped eyes on him, said director Chris Columbus. 'This is one of those larger-than-life projects that if you cast a well-known actor, he brings with him all kinds of baggage from his past, and the reaction from audiences is, 'Oh, he's all wrong. 'It's probably going to work better to have an unknown,' says Grove, who's also a film analyst for CNN. The roles went to Emma Watson, 10, and 11-year-old Rupert Grint, a pair of British kids who are even greener than Radcliffe - they've only appeared in school plays.īut going with inexperienced, relatively unknown actors in such a high-profile project is a smart move, says columnist Martin Grove of the Hollywood Reporter Online. The casting of Radcliffe, whose previous experience was in a 1999 'Masterpiece Theatre' production of 'David Copperfield' that aired on PBS, ends a months-long talent search that had thousands of kid actors wild about playing Harry.Īlso cast were the characters of Harry's best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Rowling's best-selling novels about a spirited boy wizard and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Producers of the new 'Harry Potter' movie are hoping that a young unknown will cast a spell over audiences.Įleven-year-old Daniel Radcliffe of England was chosen yesterday to play the title role in 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,' the upcoming film based on the first of author J.

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