It’s dangerous to be a boy wizard these days. Several media outlets are reporting that there has been a very credible and serious threat made against the life of “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe. The threat is serious enough that Radcliffe is now being guarded by former Special Air Service army guards. They’re going all-out in his security plan and even having Daniel switch cars multiple times during a trip.

A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “There is a real concern for Daniel’s welfare. No one has said what has been going on. It’s all hush-hush – but security has been massively ramped up. Daniel has the four guards with him at all times.”

The 18-year-old star is filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and although the nature of the threat – which was received via Warner Bros. who are producing the movie – is unclear, bosses aren’t prepared to take any chances.

The actor switched cars three times on Saturday night as we went to and from the film set. His regular driver – used by the star for seven years and considered “part of the family” – has been temporarily replaced. Daniel has now been given a “chase car” which follows the vehicle in which he is travelling in case of emergency. The source said of the SAS guards: “They are all experts in evasive driving, threat assessment and close protection. This isn’t about keeping an eye out for the paparazzi – these guys are looking for something far more sinister.”

[From the Herald Sun]

This is the same kind of protection given to Prince William and Prince Harry. Which means Daniel is either some kind of national treasure, or whatever threat they’re worried about is pretty serious. I don’t want to be a jerk, but I’m not sure starring in a movie is worth risking your life. “Harry Potter” is great and all, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to risk life and limb to be in it. It’s good that no one’s taking any chances with Daniel’s safety, but it sure makes you wonder who on earth would threaten his life, and why? I’m guessing it has something to do with some kind of dark force, some magic, and some freaky trees in the woods. Seriously though, I hope they figure out who’s making this threat and lock them up, no one should have to live like that.

Daniel Radcliffe recently split from his girlfriend, Equus co-star Lauren O’Toole, but he has a new squeeze, possibly the only one that would make Harry Potter fans happy.

The onlooker said: “They arrived quite late at the pub – about 10pm – and sat outside, using each other’s bodies for warmth.

“Emma, who was wearing a black top and matching pashmina, kept looking over her shoulder nervously as if she didn’t wanted to be recognised. When people started to notice the couple and began pointing, she wrapped her scarf around her head so only her eyes were peeping out.

“Daniel found her new look hysterical and started laughing. Throughout the night, in fact, he just kept giggling like a love-struck teen.

“The pair seemed totally absorbed in one another’s company, though – they were chatting and joking easily until just before closing time.

“They then left the pub, heads together and whispering, and headed in the direction of Daniel’s home nearby.”

[From The Mirror]

Emma recently split from Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell, also known as Kirsten Dunst’s ex, after her parents expressed disapproval at the match. Telling your 17-year-old daughter that you don’t like her boyfriend is probably her cue to decide she’s madly in love with him, just to drive her parents crazy.

Given that Hermoine and Harry – whoops, I mean Emma and Daniel – are both newly single, this “date” is probably just friends getting together as friends. This is what single people do. They might not even have realized that it was Valentine’s Day.

On a side note, Johnny Borrell was recently kicked out of a hotel room for throwing cushions. He’s obviously still in rock star training – doesn’t he know it’s throwing televisions out of the window, and putting a Rolls Royce in the swimming pool?

Picture note by Celebitchy: Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, are shown at their Hand, Foot and Wand print ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on 7/10/07, thanks to Splash News.

Harry Potter hunk Daniel Radcliffe has a girlfriend, which in itself may be news to send a thousand teenage girls to their bedrooms in tears. It seems she liked what she saw of Daniel during his nude scenes in the play Equus – she’s actually the understudy for the female role in the play, Jill.

His girlfriend, named Laura O’Toole, isn’t quite as financially solvent as Daniel. She sells oats to pay her bills.

Actress Laura O’Toole – who has been dating the millionaire ‘Harry Potter’ star since May – earns £7 an hour selling juice and yoghurt on health food stall Moma at London’s Liverpool Street Station from 6am to 11am.

She said: “I have to keep the pennies rolling in. We all have to pay the bills.”

Laura, 22, met Daniel, 18, while they were both starring in the raunchy West End show ‘Equus’, but she is determined to pay her own way in the relationship.

A friend said: “She doesn’t want to rely on his cash. She knows she has to stand on her own two feet.”

Divine

While her sentiments here seem so lovely and down to earth, I’m wondering if after she and Daniel split a quick tell all interview with a couple of British tabloids might sort out her bill payments. When did I become so cynical about young love?

Daniel seems a little jaded about his fame nowadays too, saying he’ll never have a one-night-stand as he wouldn’t be able to stand the anticipation of seeing the tell-all appearing in the London tabloids.

“No, I wouldn’t (have a one night stand). Because the next few weeks would be awful, worrying she’d sell her story to the press.”

Ireland Online

Daniel will be heading to Broadway with Equus.

Header picture via The Daily Mail.

Daniel Radcliffe turns 18, and gets the $40 million he earned and had put in trust released to him. He had this to say about his fortune.

“I don’t plan to be one of those people who, as soon as they turn 18, suddenly buy themselves a massive sports car collection or something similar,” he said earlier this month. “I don’t think I’ll be particularly extravagant.

“The things I like buying are things that cost about 10 pounds – books and CDs and DVDs.”

TVNZ

Why not spend it on race cars, yachts and holidays? I would. I wonder how long it will be until he changes his tune. Suddenly he says “I have a licence, I need a car. A car is an investment. I’ll spend up and get this Ferrari.” I hope he gets a red one. My first car was red. It wasn’t a Ferrari.

Harry potter sold 8.3 million copies in 24 hours, in the United States alone. In Britain the figure was 2.65 million copies. At my local bookshop it was crazy (I forgot, I was going to buy a magazine, couldn’t get in the door) while at K-Mart there was just a guy in a wizard suit standing next to a very full table of Harry Potter books. He was a really big guy, turned out he was actually a security officer. In a wizard costume. Which was pretty funny, but was I going to laugh at him? Not likely. He was really big.

Tab, The Calgary Sun, caglecartoons.com

Rupert Grint, Danielle Radcliffe and Emma Watson, the young stars of the wildly popular Harry Potter movies, were immortalized in a foot, hand and wandprint ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood yesterday.

In a recent interview in Details magazine, Radcliffe said he has no desire to date an actress and that he thinks that displays of immense wealth are obnoxious:

“I think it would be very hard to go out with an actress, because they’re mad. Some actresses are just insane. I’ve never worked with a nasty actress—they’re all absolutely delightful. But completely barking…”

“Even when I was very young and before any of this had happened, I remember being repulsed by ostentatious displays of wealth,” he says.

“People who have car collections—I never understood that. I always thought that was unnecessary. It’s not beautiful, it’s not creative. It’s just showing how much money you’ve got.”

[From Details.com]

In the interview, Radcliffe says he had a “brief heart attack” when he heard via text message that JK Rowling was planning an eighth Harry Potter book. He was relieved to find that she just planned to contribute to a charity book on magic. He will receive $50 million for playing Harry in the screen versions of the next two installments of the series, but fears being typecast and wants to step away from the role at some point.

The fear of being Harry Potter forever might explain his naked turn on the stage as a mentally disturbed stable hand in Equus. It might also provide motivation for the rather odd pictures of Radcliffe that accompanied his Details interview, in which he wears in a leather vest and blue contact lenses. The Daily Mail published this picture of his costar Emma Watson reacting as she saw the pictures for the first time. It’s going to take a lot more than a wardrobe change – or disrobing – for Radcliffe to escape Harry. With that kind of cash attached to the role, he may as well accept his fate. And next weekend we will learn what that fate will be.

Thanks to WENN for these pictures.

Harry Potter mania is about to hit. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is out in US theaters on Wednesday while the last book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is out next Saturday, July 21.

Advance reviews for the film are overwhelmingly positive, with a current 87% aggregate critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Several critics have written that it’s the best Harry Potter film yet, and that it’s darker and scarier than its four predecessors.

As for the book, I have to admit I’ve read all the other Harry Potter titles and although I won’t be waiting in line for it I’ll be sure to snatch up a copy within a few days of its release.

Diehard Harry Potter fans are planning a media blackout next weekend so that the end is not spoiled for them. JK Rowling has said that two characters will die at the end of the series, and a lot of speculation has surrounded her claims. She said she was crying while writing the end of the book and that she was devastated to end it. Fans want to know who dies, but not until they get a chance to read the whole book first.

Now, as the July 21 release of the seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, approaches, fans who have waited the better part of a decade to find out the ultimate fate of Harry, his friends and his nemeses are taking no chances.

But how far do they have to go? Must they close their eyes, cover their ears and scream, “LALALALA?”

Pretty much. In fact, if you want to get in touch with a rabid Harry Potter fan on the weekend of July 21-22, you might be out of luck.

Readers are planning media blackouts — no computers, no cell phones, no TV, no radio. And if that’s not enough, they’re threatening to get physical.

“I’ll beat the crap out of the person who spoils it for me,” Pritthish Chakraborty wrote in an e-mail. Chakraborty, 17, who runs a fan Web site, Harry Potter Beyond, in his native Bangladesh, was spoiled two years ago when a “friend” sent a picture message to his cell phone of the page describing Dumbledore’s death.

Many fans don’t want to give up the excitement and camaraderie of a midnight release party, but they know they’re putting themselves at risk.

“We advise people — I know this is terrible — to bring headphones to the book release and put them on as they leave the store so they’re not subject to the idiot across the street screaming the end to them,” said Melissa Anelli, a webmaster of the Leaky Cauldron, a prominent Harry Potter fan site.

[AP Article from the Houston Chronicle thanks to Viv for e-mailing it.]

In 2005 some fans were upset to have the end of the last book yelled out at them as they left bookstores early in the morning of the release.

I’m the kind of person that can’t resist looking up spoilers, but that wouldn’t keep me from reading the book as all the fun is getting there.

Son of a gun! Daniel Radcliffe wants Harry Potter to die!

I was looking for Harry Potter news on the internet to find out more about the upcoming movie and book and… okay that’s a complete lie, I was looking for more softcore of him. Instead I found this article in the Ireland news.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe can’t wait to get his hands on JK Rowling’s final book in the fantasy series – and he hopes his character has been killed off.

Rowling has finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it is due to hit bookstores on July 21.

Radcliffe, who has so far played Potter in four film adaptations and has signed to appear in the final three, wants to say goodbye to the franchise in style, with a dramatic death. He says: “I sort of hope I’ll die in it. I think that’s the only way Jo can end it and I’ve a melodramatic yearning for a death scene.”

Noooo! What the heck?! The book is most definitely going to end in a dramatic manner, but why are you hoping for Harry’s death? I guess I’m acting really prepubescent but I really like the series and I want to see some whup ass on Voldemort– played by Ralph Fiennes… who didn’t need any make up for the character since he’s aging sooo gracefully. Zing!

Anyway haven’t found any more nude shots of Harry, dammit. But yeah, Warner Brothers has their knickers in a knot about it.

“Warner Bros have been building up their publicity machine for Harry’s first – chaste – screen kiss when the next Potter film (Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix) comes out in the summer.

“Now our star is out there doing full-frontal sex. We’ve been blown completely out of the water by this,” according to the Daily Mail.

Thanks to People and the Irish News.

17 year-old Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe will break out of his child actor role with a controversial turn on the London stage in the acclaimed play Equus. Radcliffe will portray a stable boy who is pathologically fascinated with horses, and is in therapy with a psychologist who faces his own issues while treating him.

Radcliffe will act out a sex scene and will also appear in the buff on stage, as I’m sure you’ve heard.

Equus premieres at London’s Gielgud Theater on February 27, and also stars Richard Griffiths as the therapist. You may know Griffiths from the Harry Potter movies, where he plays Harry’s mean bumbling uncle, Vernon Dursley.

The fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is tentatively due for release in the US on July 13, 2007.

Pictures from Celebrity.Log via Lipstick.