Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix star Daniel Radcliffe enjoyed annoying the paparazzi during his recent stint on the London stage – for six months he deliberately wore the same clothes when leaving the theatre so photographs would be worthless. The 17-year-old was greeted by photographers each night outside the Gielgud Theatre during his stint in controversial West End play Equus, where the teenage actor disrobed onstage every night. Radcliffe quickly realized newspaper and magazine editors wouldn’t publish photos of him wearing the same outfit night after night, because it would look like the pictures were taken on the same day. He says, “They (the paparazzi) were outside the theatre every single night, but we came up with a cunning ruse. I would wear the same outfit every time – a different T-shirt underneath, but I’d wear the same jacket and zip it up so they couldn’t see what I was wearing underneath, and the same hat. So they could take pictures for six months, but it would look like the same day, so they (photos) became unpublishable. Which was hilarious, because there’s nothing better than seeing paparazzi getting really frustrated.”
It’s easy to hate on the paparazzi because it looks very annoying to have to deal with them, but this surely infuriated Radcliffe’s agent. Love ’em or hate ’em the paparazzi are an essential part of the fame machine and working with that machine can make you rich. Disrupt its machinations at your financial peril.
If in 10 years’ time, Danny Radcliffe can’t pay a parparazzo to snap shots of him swimming naked in the Thames he may wish he spent less time biting their hands when they were full of food.
Not Unreasonable 