This Halloween saw the long-awaited US premiere of Horns, the big-screen adaptation of Joe Hill’s acclaimed novel about Ig Perrish, a young man who suddenly sprouts a pair of devil horns following the grisly murder of his beloved lady friend Merrin. Equal parts twisted fairytale, Twin Peaks-style murder mystery and pitch-black horror comedy, Horns is helmed by extreme-horror icon Alexandre Aja (Piranha, The Hills Have Eyes) and stars Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, who seems to be carving out a solid niche for himself in the horror genre with roles in Hammer’s The Woman in Black and an intriguing new screen adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Front-and-center in nearly every scene, Radcliffe shoulders the dramatic and comic weight of Horns in arguably his bravest screen role to date – one which will no doubt shock fans only familiar with his relatively kid-friendly Potter persona.

I had the good fortune to chat with Radcliffe on the eve of Horns‘ stateside premiere, where he talked about the challenges of playing such an unusual character, and his ongoing interest in the horror genre.

BD: I was amazed by your performance in Horns. It’s such a departure from anything you’ve ever done before.

RADCLIFFE: Thank you very much! I’m really very proud of it. It was an incredible film, and I’m so happy with the way it came out.

Ig is such a horribly tormented character from the outset… he must have been a challenge to play.

Yes, especially because the film starts off at a very intense pitch, and emotionally it just goes up from there. The nature of the horns, the way they force people to reveal their darkest truths… sure, it’s all good fun when Ig’s in a hospital surrounded by comparative strangers, but when we get into the scenes with his mom and dad, his brother, and other people he loves and trusts, it becomes really gut-wrenching to have those things revealed. There’s something about the situation where you want to give every scene its requisite emotional weight, but there’s such a graduation of intensity from one scene to the next; for example, when Ig’s mother tells him she doesn’t want to see him again, I couldn’t actually let him be too wracked with grief at that moment, because in the very next scene we learn his father thinks he’s a murderer.

Do you feel the thread of humor in the story helps to temper that raw emotional aspect?

Oh, definitely. I think when people go to the cinema, we’re to a certain extent desensitized to the way characters react to crazy, horrific things; they often respond  in a way that seems perfectly natural. In the new Godzilla, for example… apart from Bryan Cranston, it seems that the characters were reacting to the monster like, “Oh look, there’s Godzilla,” like they were totally used to the idea. But in the movie The One I Love, people do very much the opposite, reacting to crazy situations like normal human beings: they’re freaking out, just trying desperately to make sense of it. That kind of reaction is where a lot of the comedy in Horns comes from. Ig reacts to the horns by freaking out and wondering if he’s actually going insane, while everyone he meets seems perfectly okay with them. It’s kind of heartbreaking, but it’s also very funny.

Had you read Joe Hill’s novel prior to taking the role?

Not beforehand, but after I read the script and met Alex [Aja], I knew I had to do it, and I read the novel after that. It’s such a fantastic book. Some elements of the story were moved around – as you often must do – but the spirit of Joe’s story is unmistakably present. I think fans of the book will really enjoy the movie.

Did you draw from elements of the book in developing your character?

Yeah, the great thing about playing a character based on a book is that you have a whole world of resources at your disposal in doing your research, as it were, and I looked for things that I felt could illuminate the character more for the audience. I found it useful to do that early on, but once you start filming, it helps to actually dispose of that approach; you don’t want to be the guy who’s still bringing the book in on day 40 of the shoot, saying “This scene isn’t supposed to happen this way!”

It does diverge from the book in terms of the murder mystery, for obvious reasons…

Yeah, particularly when it comes to the killer’s backstory. Early in the book, you see a lot of this character’s home life and inner life that isn’t shown in the movie. I think it’s necessary to omit that, because otherwise the guessing game would have been over a lot earlier for the audience.

You’re no stranger to working with all kinds of special effects, but you were covered in some really heavy prosthetics toward the finale. How long did you spend in makeup to become the demon?

Believe it or not, it only took about two hours! Mike McCarthy and Mike Fields, who did my prosthetic work every day, were just amazing. I mean, if they had achieved what they did in four hours would have been incredible, but to do it in two? That was just ridiculous. I’ve never seen anyone work that fast and do such fantastic work before. When you’re an actor used to doing that kind of prosthetic work, how good those artists are at their jobs can often determine how good or bad your day is going to be, and I was so lucky to have been working with them.

Even though it’s an elaborate makeup, it never obscures your performance.

That was definitely one of Alex’s concerns. After designing such a dramatic look for that scene, they wanted to be sure they could still actually see me, so that  the audience could still have a connection to the character. That’s why I really like that part of the film, because by this stage, if you get used to seeing an actor’s face and suddenly that’s replaced with an unrecognizable visual effect, you’re not going to be as emotionally involved.

Have you had much feedback from your fans about the film? It’s a radical departure from anything you’ve done before.

I’ve been getting some really great reactions. For example, recently I was told that Horns is kind of the “Anti-Harry Potter!” I don’t know if that’s quite true, because Ig is also a very good person as well – despite having done some highly questionable things. It’s such a crazy story, and probably not like anything they’ve ever seen recently, but I think there’s always a hunger for that, so… so far so good!

You’ve spent a lot of time in the horror genre lately, between Horns and The Woman in Black, and the new Frankenstein coming out next year. Can you give us any insight on that project?

Frankenstein was very interesting, because of all of the history behind it. While it’s a classic within the horror genre, I would classify this version as an adventure movie with horror elements, with lots of nods to the many previous incarnations of Frankenstein. I’ve seen a very rough version recently, and I’m very happy with it; it’s exciting and fun.

How do you like working in horror in comparison to the pure fantasy of the Harry Potter films?

What I love about horror is how it gives you a chance to explore some very significant themes while having a fun and compelling story on top. For example, The Woman in Black is about a guy dealing with grief, and searching for proof of the afterlife because it will give him some semblance of hope that his wife is still out there in some form or another… but it’s also an hour and a half of getting the shit scared out of you by a ghost. Horns deals with the sense of being an outsider, and of losing someone we love, but it’s also a revenge thriller about a guy with supernatural powers. I love working on a film where both of those aspects are in play at the same time.