“As soon as I saw Harry Potter, I thought “Hey, someday … my doppelganger!” joked “Weird Al” Yankovic about the inspiration to cast Daniel Radcliffe as his on-screen alter ego in Roku’s biopic parody Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
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More seriously, though, the musical satirist and director Eric Appel agreed it was the actor’s near-instant commitment to the role that made Radcliffe their Weird Al, the pair revealed Sunday at the telepic’s Deadline’s Contenders TV panel.
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“He took it very seriously,” explained Appel. “And in our first meeting with him when he signed on to do it, which was about two years before it got made, he asked the question at the end of our Zoom call: ‘What kind of accordion should I buy? I’m planning on learning how to play the accordion.’”
Radcliffe ultimately learned the instrument with an assist from the master, Yankovic himself. “I gave him some lessons,” the five-time Grammy winner revealed. “I, in fact, made some instructional videos, like where to have the your fingers on the buttons. Like, only five people are going to know that he’s really doing, but he’s actually putting the right buttons on the accordion!”
Yankovic and Appel, who co-wrote the screenplay, were drawn to Radcliffe thanks to adventurous body of work following his headlining role in the immensely popular Harry Potter franchise. “That really impressed us,” said Yankovic. “He’s made a lot of interesting choices in terms of roles he’s taken on — a lot of weird roles, which made us think he probably would be amenable to our movie.”
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Added Appel: “He does comedy and drama so well. We wanted our actors to play it like very play it very straight and not push the comedy too hard, and Radcliffe totally got what we were going for.”
They saw in Radcliffe an actor who would lean hard into playing the role as straight as possible, despite the outrageousness of the faux biography. ”We weren’t like trying to think like, ‘Who doesn’t look like Al?’” said Yankovic. “It was all who could who can pull off the comedy and the drama, because it was a very, very specific tone we’re going for and there are very few actors in our minds that could really pull that off. And we were so impressed by Daniel’s body of work that we thought that he was the guy.”
Casting Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna was another inspired stroke through the counterintuitive approach to the comedy, though they were unaware of the actress’ considerable musical talents. “After she had been on a movie, we saw her on The Tonight Show singing a Madonna song,” said Yankovic, “and we’re like, ‘Why didn’t we have her sing in the movie? She’s amazing! She sounds just like Madonna!’”
Check back Tuesday for the panel video.
Deadline Contenders Television is sponsored by Apple TV+, Coverfly, Eyepetizer, Final Draft, Los Siete Misterios, Michter’s, and Village Roadshow Entertainment. Partners include: Four Seasons Resort Maui, The American Pavilion, Julia Wong Designs and Pampring.
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