Since his debut as The Boy Who Lived in the Harry Potter movies, fans have wondered about Daniel Radcliffe’s net worth and the films that made him the multi-millionaire he is today.
Radcliffe—whose full name is Daniel Jacob Radcliffe—was born in London, England on July 23, 1989. His mother was a casting director, while his father was a literary agent. Both of his parents were also former child actors. In 2000, Radcliffe was cast as Harry Potter, a young wizard, in the movie adaptation of J.K. Rowling‘s 1997 best seller, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which followed Harry and his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, as they attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, while defending the wizarding world from Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who killed Harry’s parents and wants to rule both the magical and non-magical universe.
Radcliffe was cast in the role after Chris Columbus—who directed the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—saw him in the 1999 BBC miniseries, David Copperfield. “This is what I want,” Columbus told The Independent in 2007. “This is Harry Potter.” Rowling also endorsed Columbus’ casting choice. “I don’t think Chris Columbus could have found a better Harry,” she said at the time.
Radcliffe—along with Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (who played Harry’s friends, Hermione and Ron)—went on to star in eight Harry Potter movies from 2001 to 2011. In November 2021, HBO Max announced that a reunion special titled Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts was in the works with Radcliffe, Watson and Grint, as well as dozens of other actors, directors and producers from the eight Harry Potter movies. The special, which premiered in January 2022, told “an enchanting making-of story through all-new, in-depth interviews and cast conversations,” according to HBO Max, and saw the original cast revisit Hogwarts, Diagon Alley and other iconic sets from the Harry Potter universe.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in 2021, Radcliffe looked back on the past 20 years of the Harry Potter movies. “I have really, really fond memories of all my scenes with Gary Oldman [who played Sirius Black] and David Thewlis [who played Remus Lupin,]” he said. “They were some of the first scenes on the third and the fifth film where I started to feel like I was a young man who was just starting to figure out what acting was, and they were pretty cool people to be around.”
So what is Daniel Radcliffe’s net worth and what did he make for the Harry Potter movies? Read on for how much Radcliffe is worth and how his salaries from the Harry Potter movies made him the multi-millionaire he is today.
What did Daniel Radcliffe make for the Harry Potter movies?
Image: Everett Collection.
What did Daniel Radcliffe make for the Harry Potter movies? Radcliffe starred as the lead role of Harry Potter—a young wizard tasked with saving the magical and non-magical world from a dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort—in eight Harry Potter movies: 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2005’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2009’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
So…how much did Daniel Radcliffe make from the Harry Potter movies? According to Celebrity Net Worth, Radcliffe made $1 million for the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in 2001. Due to the box office success of the Sorcerer’s Stone ($974 million grossed worldwide and $1 billion in re-releases), Radcliffe made $3 million (a raise of $2 million from the first film) for the second Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in 2002.
For the third Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in 2004, Radcliffe made $6 million (double what he made for Chamber of Secrets). He made $11 million for the fourth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in 2005 and $14 million for the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in 2007. He received a $10 million raise for the sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in 2009, which made him $24 million. For the last two Harry Potter movies—2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Radcliffe made a combined $50 million for both movies. In total, Radcliffe has made $109 million from the Harry Potter movies, according to Celebrity Net Worth. As for the Harry Potter movies, the eight films have grossed a total of $7.7 billion.
In an interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2021, Radcliffe revealed that he was cast as Harry Potter after he was recommended for the role by Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall. “I met Maggie Smith when I was 9 for the first time,” he said at the time. “I did a thing before Potter called David Copperfield, a BBC adaptation… Maggie was the person that recommended me for Potter. So she’s the reason I ended up doing that. I met her when I was 9 for the first time. I didn’t know who she was. My parents were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re working with Maggie Smith, that’s huge.’ But I was not like a Prime of Miss Jean Brodie fan, so I didn’t know who that was!”
Image: Warner Bros. Ent./Courtesy Everett Collection
Casting director Janet Hirshenson told The Huffington Post in 2020 that she had a specific requirements for the main cast members of the Harry Potter movies. The first was that the lead actors had to be British, which ruled out American actors like Robin Williams, who wanted to play Hagrid. For the roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Hirshenson also wanted actors who were the same ages as their characters. “It was really specific on ages because there were several movies hopefully, so we could not go for a small 13-year-old to play anybody. They had to be at least the proper age of the character,” she said.
The requirements became even more specific for Harry, who has blue/green eyes in the books. “And for Harry, to complicate things, I needed a blue-or-green-eyed kid because part of Harry is his green eyes or blue-green, but they couldn’t be brown eyes, so that was another elimination thing. We said, ‘Oh, drat! He’s great, but he has brown eyes,’” she said.
In the end, it came down to Radcliffe (who director Chris Columbus had his eye on because of his work in David Copperfield) and another actor, with Radcliffe winning the role. “The other kid was terrific and very vulnerable and very Harry-looking, but besides that, Harry was going to become a very powerful kid, too,” Hirshenson said. “And Daniel had both sides. He was very vulnerable, but the other kid ― it was like, he [was] not going to have the balls that Daniel has, to put it that way.”
During HBO Max’s Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts in 2022, Radcliffe revealed that he cried when he learned he was cast as Harry Potter. “I heard the phone ring. My dad went to answer it,” Radcliffe recalled. “He came upstairs and stood in the doorway of the bathroom — my mum was there and my dad was facing me … He said ‘you got the part’ or ‘you’re playing Harry’ or something. I’m pretty sure I cried … but I don’t know why! He continued, “Looking back at that, I don’t know what that was, really. They were happy tears. But to acknowledge that almost feels as if I knew on some level how momentous it was, and I really don’t think that I did.”
How much is Daniel Radcliffe’s net worth?
Image: Courtesy of HBO Max.
How much is Daniel Radcliffe’s net worth? Radcliffe is worth $110 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Along with the $100-plus million he’s made from the Harry Potter movies, Radcliffe’s net worth also includes the money he’s made from films like The Woman in Black, Kill Your Darlings, Victor Frankenstein, Swiss Army Man and Now You See Me 2, as well as Broadway shows like Equus, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and The Cripple of Inishmaan. Radcliffe also stars on the TBS TV series Miracle Workers. Radcliffe also owns his own theatre company, Gilmore Jacobs Ltd, with which was founded by his parents, Alan Radcliffe and Marcia Gresham, in 2000. According to Companies House, the company is worth £80 million, which is around $105 million in the United States.
In an interview with BBC in 2021, Radcliffe revealed the financial advice he’s followed since he was a kid. “This is something I was told by Will Steggle, my dresser in Potter — he said: ‘money should give you room to maneuver in your life, at best that’s is what it gives you — a bit of freedom to do what you like,’” he said. As for how he spends his $110 million net worth, Radcliffe told the “Full Disclosure” podcast in 2020 that he isn’t a big spender. “I’m not particularly extravagant. There are moments where I think, ‘Man, I’m really bad at being famous,’” he said.
He also told The Telegraph in 2016 that, while he doesn’t spend much, he’s still “grateful” for the money he has made from Harry Potter and other projects. “I’m very grateful for it, because having money means you don’t have to worry about it, which is a very lovely freedom to have,” he said. “It also gives me immense freedom, career-wise … For all the people who’ve followed my career, I want to give them something to be interested in, rather than them just watch me make loads of money on crap films for the rest of my life.”
Harry Potter: Return to Hogwarts is available to stream on HBO Max. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz
For more about Harry Potter, check out The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook
by Dinah Bucholz. The New York Times bestseller features more than 150 recipes from the Harry Potter universe, from cauldron cakes to knickerbocker glories, for fans to re-create at home, regardless of if they’re wizard, witch or muggle. Other spell-binding recipes include Hagrid’s rock cakes, treacle tarts (Harry’s favorite dessert), Molly’s meat pies (Mrs. Weasley’s classic dish) and Kreacher’s French onion soup pumpkin pasties, a staple on the Hogwarts Express cart. The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook is a must-have for any Harry Potter fan who wants to know what it’s really like to eat in Hogwarts’ dining hall. For more Harry Potter collectible items, check out our Harry Potter gift guide here.
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