Back in November, in a giant auditorium filled with copious amounts of Harry Potter fans, fellow NWN writer Isabelle Davis and I attended a press conference, via satellite, with the “Woman in Black” star Daniel Radcliffe at a Journalism Conference in Minneapolis. Yes, I’ll admit it. We originally went because we were die-hard HP fanatics, but at the end of the day, we learned  a lot about the kid who grew up on the big screen and his new movie. The new movie which is supposed to be the biggest and best scary movie of 2012 (Check out the review!)

Gone were the days of big budget special effects, Death Eaters, bottle-cap glasses and Quidditch (although he laughed when someone screamed “ten points for Gryffindor”).  Although Radcliffe says he doesn’t regret anything that had to do with HP, he was scared of how others would react to him portraying something other than the kid with lightning-shaped scar.

The movie, “The Woman in Black” is about a young widowed father, whose wife dies during child-birth. In real life, his son was his real life Godson, played by Misha Handley. “You can’t fake that kind of relationship I have with him,” Radcliffe said. His character, Arthur Kipps, is sent to a house in the middle of nowhere to handle the estate financially. The house is supposed to be abandoned. It’s not.  Luckily, Radcliffe said that he already had his “I’m scared” face down.

“It’s about a man who lost his wife, but also about ghosts. But the kick is, the ghost is not his wife. There is still that connection there, which Arthur is trying to find confirmation of. His wife is still with him and there is the woman in black, also. The story is really about an afterlife. It’s moving as well as terrifying,” Radcliffe said on the large auditorium screen. Young  journalists stood in line to ask questions through a microphone for Radcliffe, who was in Los Angeles to promote his movie.

This was not the kind of movie where Radcliffe had 7 books to work from. “I had to learn to be more passive. Arthur is really learning to be more of a participant in his own life. I have, luckily, not gone through the trauma of losing my wife or someone close to me, so I talked to grievance counselors about losing people. I needed to understand where his depression was coming from.”

Although the press conference was about the “Woman in Black”, there was still a view questions about his previous 10 years in he film industry. He talked briefly about his roles on Broadway in “Equius” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” but talked about his childhood as a famous kid.”There were a few ‘Beatles’ moments of screaming fans in Japan after Chamber of Secrets. That was terrifying but so exciting.”

Radcliffe also talked about his co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, describing Rupert as “really cool” and Emma as “fiercely intelligent, just like Hermione.” Fun fact of the day: Daniel’s mother knocked on the door while he was in a bathtub and told him he won the role as Harry Potter. He screamed.

Be sure to check out the “scariest movie of the year” and see more than what meets the eye when it comes to Daniel Radcliffe. The “Woman in Black” is now in theaters.