Stars mull options if ‘Potter’ hadn’t come calling

Radcliffe:

An 11-year-old when picked for the title role of the “Harry Potter’’ franchise, Radcliffe figures that since his parents worked in the arts — his mother as a casting director, his father as a literary agent — he would have ended up in show business. But not as an actor, probably as an assistant director.

“What probably would have happened, when I got to about 17, 18, and it became apparent, as it would have done, to my parents that I wasn’t going to be going to university, I’m sure they probably would have tried to get me, like, an internship on a film as a runner. And then I’d just try to work my way up the A.D. ladder from there,’’ said Radcliffe, whose pre-“Harry Potter’’ acting work included the title role in a British television production of “David Copperfield.’’

“To this day, I still fancy myself as a bit of an A.D. Anyone who works with me will tell you if they give me a radio, I constantly kind of try to run messages between people, that I always like to know exactly what’s going on around the set. So if somebody’s saying, `Where’s so and so? We need them now,’ I can go, `They’re there. That person’s coming back. They’ve just gone to the toilet.’ I really like to know exactly what’s going on at all times on set, because I like to feel that’s another way in which I can make myself useful.’’

Watson:

Just 10 when she was cast as bookish Hermione Granger, Watson had no previous professional acting experience. Yet she’s convinced that no matter how she would have gone on to make a living, acting still would have been part of her life.

“I would have found some way to end up acting, performing. I mean, obviously, not on this scale, but I would have been doing it, I’m sure,’’ Watson said. “I would have been doing plays. I’m almost a hundred percent sure I would be doing plays, I would be acting. I mean, that would be a sideline thing for me. I would be focusing toward some kind of career that I’m not really sure of now, but I definitely would have been performing, some way or another.’’

Grint:

Also a screen newcomer when chosen at 11 to play jittery but stalwart sidekick Ron Weasley, Grint finds it daunting to imagine a life in which he never landed among the “Harry Potter’’ clan.