Daniel Radcliffe has revealed why he doesn’t sing in the upcoming parody biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The actor, who shot to fame playing Harry Potter, the boy who lived, has had a long and successful career in both mainstream and independent cinema to date, including gems such as The Woman in Black, Horns, and Jungle. He has also been known to take himself a little less seriously, taking on roles in Guns Akimbo and The Lost City. One of the strangest projects in Radcliffe’s filmography has to be Swiss Army Man, although recently the actor revealed that playing Weird Al may be stranger than being a magical farting corpse.
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Coming to the Roku Channel on November 4, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story tells the tale of Al’s life as he shoots to stardom creating satirical parodies of popular songs. As revealed in the trailers so far, this includes his inspiration for his hit song Like a Surgeon which comes from the mind of a very exaggerated version of Madonna, played by Evan Rachel Wood, with the implications that the two did a little more than just songwriting together (this part of the film is fictional asthey never actually dated in real life, but Madonna did come up with the original concept for Al’s song). Also co-starring Rainn Wilson, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story has received positive reviews since its premiere at TIFF, suggesting that the biopic may be a huge success at general release.
In an interview for Empire, Daniel Radcliffe discussed the fact that his singing talents won’t be heard in the film. Although the actor sang live during the production, his voice is being dubbed over by the actual song curator Weird Al Yankovic. This is simply due to the fact that he can’t physically reach Al’s pitch range. He went on to comment:
"I remember asking, 'Am I going to have to sing? Because I can sing, but not in Al's register' Eric [Appel, director] was like, You'll be lip-syncing the entire way through.' We wanted to laugh at the trope of a famous actor miming along."
Weird Al Yankovic Heard Daniel Radcliffe Sing Live
Although audiences won’t be able to hear Radcliffe’s dulcet tones, Weird Al Yankovic was on set almost every day and listened to the actor blasting out his hits live. This was quite an intimidating feat for Radcliffe as he was performing to the creative genius behind so many well-known parodies like Amish Paradise and Eat It. Yankovic seemed to approve, however, as he was heard laughing on set regularly, having a fantastic time watching his own exaggerated history come to life before his eyes. The trailers showing Radcliffe as Al performing hint at how this portrayal will be wild, wacky, and a little out of control.
With this highly anticipated movie coming soon, there is a guaranteed sense of joy surrounding it. Although it is only loosely based on the events of the actual artist’s life, overall, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is looking to be a fun-filled ride, with humor, drama, and plenty of well-known songs that will have the audience humming for days after watching. Even the advertising for this film is proving to be a spoof, with one of the latest posters released by Roku being the perfect parody of one promoting Bohemian Rhapsody back in 2018. Sadly, audiences won’t hear Radcliffe’s rendition of Al’s songs like they did with Rami Malek (to a degree) when he was playing Freddie Mercury, but sometimes the only voice suitable for the performance is the original artist.