Trying not to burden you all too much with this (the guy, after all, is giving – and will be giving – plenty of interviews, in advance of, and doing the publicity for, his upcoming movie) – Daniel Radcliffe is Allen Ginsberg! – But, (from Yahoo movies blog), we thought to run this, considering it’s so specifically Ginsberg-centric (and in case you haven’t seen it).
Interviewer: Tell us about how you stepped into the sensible shoes of the young Allen Ginsberg the year he entered Columbia UniversityDaniel Radcliffe: The first point of reference for me was his diaries. He had quite extensive diaries that he kept from a very young age. They gave me some very great insight into him for this period. After that, the other stuff was working on the voice and the accent, and work on his physicality. And then the final piece of it was the contact lenses, and the glasses and the permed hair…
Interviewer: Did you get Ginsberg’s signature buck teeth? [sic]
DR: No I didn’t. We did something to the lips, slightly filled them out, because he did have really full lips. We didn’t get mine to the place his were. That would have looked ridiculous.
Interviewer: What was it like looking in the mirror in character?
DR: Looking at yourself in the mirror, and then seeing somebody that doesn’t look like yourself, is very liberating for an actor. It definitely makes you feel very free.
Interviewer: When you recite his poem “Howl”, it’s very powerful.
DR: When I was young, I wondered what the hell was going on here because it’s not the poetry I myself gravitated towards.
Interviewer: Which was?
DR: Keats, Byron, Frost, Auden – and Tony Harrison.
Interviewer: So, you like your poetry more structured, more lyrical?
DR: Yeah, structured, lyrical form, meter — I love all that. I really do. But…
Interviewer: Ginsberg’s very vernacular.
DR: Well the rhythm is there, and his poetry came about at a time when people had become so dogmatic about rhyming and meter. But it really was something to rebel against, because, you know, the best poets also know when not to use it. You can play around with that
Interviewer: One of the defining facts of his life, and one that comes through in “Kill Your Darlings,” is the impact his mother’s mental illness had on him.
DR: His relationship with his mother, as it is with so many men, not just Jewish men, was an incredibly formative one in his life. In particular, it was such a strained relationship, and his mother was so disturbed for so much of his youth. One of the things in the film, one of the things that are important to anyone growing up, is moving beyond your parents. And that’s a very hard thing, particularly in certain religious families that are very dogmatic and prescribed about the kind of path they want their children to go on. And becoming a poet certainly isn’t in any Jewish mother or father’s top five things they want for their son [Editorial note – Allen’s father, Louis, was, of course, himself a poet]