While Daniel Radcliffe will always be best known for leading the Harry Potter movies, following the conclusion of The Boy Who Lived’s cinematic story (unless a film adaptation of The Cursed Child gets off the ground), the actor has also made a name for himself tackling unusual roles. This includes that time he played a corpse in 2016’s Swiss Army Man, and in a few months, we’ll see him starring in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story as the title musician. Radcliffe revealed that this “biopic” will involve a “giant egg,” and has even gone so far as to say it could be weirder than what went down in Swiss Army Man.
Just so everyone’s on the same page, although Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is covering Weird Al’s rise to fame, just like the satirical songs that the man himself puts together, this movie is essentially serving as a satire on biopics. Among the ways the movie will stand apart from what happened in reality include a scene showing Daniel Radcliffe’s Yankovic hatching from a giant egg while on a psychedelic drug trip, and the actor used that scene to compare this 2022 movie’s weirdness to Swiss Army Man’s, telling The New York Times:
Maybe only Paul Dano riding me like a Jet Ski in Swiss Army Man comes close to the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.
For those who didn’t see Swiss Army Man and are baffled by the above statement, the black comedy saw Paul Dano playing Hank Thompson, a man marooned on an island who stumbles upon the corpse of Daniel Radcliffe’s character. Not only does Hank start using it in ridiculous ways, but the body eventually starts speaking and takes on the name Manny. Oh yeah, and Manny farted a lot. So yeah, it’s hard to envision Radcliffe starring in anything weirder than Swiss Army Man, but in his mind, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, for the most part, either comes in a close second or surpasses that A24 flick, outside of the jet ski scene. Having that egg-hatching moment definitely lends credence to this viewpoint.
Going the satirical biopic route rather than deliver a straightforward look at how Weird Al hit the big time will certainly go a long way towards making Weird: The Al Yankovic Story stand out, and Daniel Radcliffe was thankful that the script allowed for things to get particularly wild, saying:
There was definitely a freedom in the version of Al that is in the script. And it is so insane.
Daniel Radcliffe then turned to the actual Weird Al Yankovic, who was taking part in the same interview, and joked about him having not murdered “many, many people,” to which the singer responded, “Not a lot. Very few.” Along with providing his singing vocals for the movie, Weird Al also appears as a record executive, as seen in the trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The cast also includes Rain Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson, Quinta Brunson and Will Forte, while behind the scenes, Eric Appel directed and co-wrote the script with Weird Al.
Filmed over just 18 days, the public will get to see just how weird things get in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story when it’s released on The Roku Channel on November 4. In the meantime, you can check out Daniel Radcliffe’s most film appearance by streaming The Lost City with a Paramount+ subscription.
