• Daniel Radcliffe says he finds the concept of celebrity and the level of interest in the trivia of actors' lives "weird." While promoting his first romantic comedy -- What If, directed by Michael Dowse --the 25-year-old British star was keen to keep the conversation away from his own love life. Radcliffe is rumored to be dating his Kill Your Darlings co-star Erin Darke. "People ask me about my relationship, and I try to give as little away as possible," Radcliffe explained. "People are dying in the world, give time to that." And yet despite his best efforts to keep quiet about his personal life, the former Harry Potter star still finds himself tabloid fodder. "That gets turned into a story in itself," he said. "'Oh, you've been really open about this.' No, I haven't. I was just, like, trying to keep my mouth shut." Radcliffe was happy, however, to talk about his career choices post-Harry Potter. Since leaving the boy wizard behind him, he has sought out challenging roles and embraced on-screen nudity. Whether portraying beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, or skinny-dipping in What If, Radcliffe joked that he wasn't "intentionally" seeking out roles in which he can appear naked.
• Peter Capaldi knew he was in New York on Thursday the minute he stepped out of a classic yellow cab that drove him to the premiere of Doctor Who. "Someone just shouted at me from the crowd, 'The first Italian Doctor,'" he said, laughing. Capaldi is the 12th actor to play the Doctor in six decades. At 56, he is also the oldest since the first, William Hartnell. Show runner Steven Moffat is not concerned that younger viewers will be turned off by the elder time-and-space traveling Time Lord. "Is that why Santa Claus never worked as an old man and kids didn't like him?" he cracked. "Look, I hate to tell you this, but to kids, [previous 31-year-old Doctor] Matt Smith was ancient, right? I mean we're all ancient to them so [I'm] not remotely [worried.]" Moffat also is not dwelling on a recent online leak of scripts for several coming episodes. "There's nothing we can do about it. We were a bit depressed about it, especially me -- but what can you do," he said with a shrug. Although the Doctor has changed, his companion has not. Jenna Coleman returns as Clara Oswald, who also was Smith's sidekick. Capaldi and Coleman have been on a world tour of seven cities across five continents in 12 days to promote the new season premiering Aug. 23 on BBC America.
A Section on 08/16/2014