Daniel Radcliffe is determined to distance himself from his Harry Potter persona, but he’s not going to go all “Miley” to do it. In an profile in the pages of the New York Times entitled, “Harry Who?”, Daniel, 24, opens up about his struggle to prove that he is a very serious and quite talented young actor, while still appreciating his magical childhood on the set of the various Potter movies.

“I have a massive chip on my shoulder,” he explains. “When you fall into something at age 11 and get paid incredible amounts of money for your entire teenage years for doing a job anyone would want, there is a part of you that thinks everybody is just saying, ‘He got there because he fell into it; he’s not really an actor.'”

Radcliffe has played some pretty heavy roles as of late, such as Allen Ginsberg in the movie “Kill Your Darlings” about the late Beat poet.

He’s also starring in “A Young Doctor’s Notebook,” based on a book by the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov which is already a success on British television. The first season began airing in the United States this month on Ovation, an arts television network.

In “A Young Doctor’s Notebook”, Radcliffe plays a young, morphine-addicted doctor who often appears alongside an older version of himself, played by Jon Hamm. The show is set in early-20th-century Russia and has been called at times, comically obscene and sometimes absurd.

When Hamm approached Radcliffe about the project, showing him an outline of the script, he said yes right away. “The Master and Margarita,” Bulgakov’s best-known book, is one of Radcliffe’s favorite novels. He even treated himself to a trip to Moscow to visit the author’s home.

One thing is clear, Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t have to work very hard for fans to take him seriously. He has already proven beyond doubt that he has what it takes to capture our hearts again, not as Harry, but as the distinguished Daniel.

Image via youtube