Doing “alpha-nerd stuff” in front of Rihanna may have landed Daniel Radcliffe the lead in Weird
In a new interview, Weird Al Yankovic tells The A.V. Club that he knew he and Radcliffe were "kindred spirits" when he saw the actor on The Graham Norton Show
Aux News Daniel Radcliffe
Want to catch Weird Al Yankovic’s attention in such a profound way he keeps your name in the back of his mind for years until the time comes to cast his biopic, Weird? Just do some nerdy shit on live TV in front of Rihanna. As Yankovic tells The A.V. Club’s Ian Spelling in a new interview, that’s what closed the deal for Daniel Radcliffe.
Yankovic says that Radcliffe first caught his eye in 2010, when the Harry Potter star appeared on The Graham Norton Show alongside Rihanna, and took the opportunity to perform “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer. In Yankovic’s book, that qualifies as “an extremely nerdy thing to do.”
“The fact that he memorized that and then performed it on national TV in front of Rihanna? That’s alpha-nerd stuff,” Yankovic muses. I thought at that moment, “Oh, we’re kindred spirits. This guy … we’ll be friends.”
After that, Yankovic said Radcliffe stayed in a corner of his mind “for years”— when he saw Radcliffe’s name on a shortlist of actors in consideration for the lead role in Weird, Yankovic knew exactly how to proceed.
“I thought, ‘Daniel’s got to be the guy,’” Yankovic recalls. “He’s got the right spirit. He got the right energy. He definitely has the acting chops. I can’t imagine anybody that would be more suited to this role than him.”
So what exactly is that right energy? According to Yankovic, it’s a healthy balance between comedic and dramatic timing, and the ability to convey a “very specific tone.”
“It’s obviously a comedy, but we’re not playing it like a comedy,” Yankovic explains. “We’re playing it like an extremely serious Oscar-baiting Hollywood biopic, so the comedic and dramatic moments had to land. There are some moments where some people weep, in the screenings. It hits both ends of the spectrum. We needed somebody like Daniel, who’d be able to play both sides.”
Weird is currently available for streaming on The Roku Channel.
19 Comments
Wait, so this is reporting from the AV Club… about an interview on the AV Club?
They did the same thing when they wrote a Newswire about John Carpenter not being clear about what “elevated horror” means, sourcing an interview from…the AV Club posted a day earlier.
I really don’t think they used to cannibalize their own articles like this
At least it wasn’t about Matthew Perry or Jennifer Lawrence.
Yeah, I’ve noticed this happening lately and it’s bizarre. They’re grabbing crap off the newswire even if it’s a summary of something they originated 3 days previously. Lazy click baity bullshit.
I’d never heard The Elements before right now, but it’s clearly the inspiration for some of my favorite songs from the Animaniacs.
The Elements is the melody from a song in the musical Pirates of Penzance. Tom Lehrer was “weird al”-ing that song. So were the Animaniacs (though they still may have been inspired by The Elements to parody that particular song).The original is pretty funny, too.
This is some weird meta that I’m not sure how I feel about.
I feel like any time you’re within 10 feet of Rihanna, you’ve probably already won at life.
Unless someone just sunk your Battleship…
I don’t want to imagine a world where Chris Brown is a winner.
Hey, Limey, you don’t have to imagine that world. Here in the USA, where corporal punishment is legal in most schools, Brown never stopped releasing new music and he just finished a successful tour.
He should have abused women and/or children and Rihanna really would have loved it.
His name is “Weird Al” Yankovic. Without the quotation marks you’re just insulting some guy named Al Yankovic
I didn’t take it personally.
I saw that Weird Al biopic movie on Roku TV. It was actually good in a weird way. WEIRD! lol. The movie is satire. It mocks all those biopic films like the Johnny Cash and Queen movie. It makes fun of the troupes in those films. It’s a perfect biopic for Weird Al, because he parodies everything so of course his biopic is a parody of biopics lol. To give you an idea of how silly this movie is, Madonna is the villain of the movie lol!
If anyone here doesn’t know Tom Lehrer, take this opportunity to listen. You’re welcome in advance. One of the best musical satirists of all time.
Wernher Von Braun is a classic. Used it in a presentation about famous Germans in Grade 12 German.