Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has said he believes his acting career has made him more grounded and rounded as a person than he would have been otherwise.

In between his role as the young wizard and other work, Daniel’s schooling, at the private City of London school, has been frequently interrupted but he thinks that’s a good thing. Without it, he told the Guardian recently, “I would have become like a lot of other public school boys which isn’t a thing I necessarily want to become or like.”

As an actor, “you meet people from totally different walks of life. And the people I’m best friends with on the films are not generally the actors.”

“I mean, I get on well with all the cast, but my best friend is a 41-year-old guy who works in costume and has got two kids.”

“You do meet a lot of different people and that’s what I love about it. That’s why I don’t understand why actors become arrogant and are completely unapproachable - because as an actor, the most valuable thing you can do is talk to people and hear their stories, because it’ll all come in handy.”

He admits that other pupils at the school hassled him when he first landed the Harry Potter role but “as soon as you realise that these people are stupid, it doesn’t matter any more.”

“Eddie Izzard has this great line: that generally people who take the p*ss out of other people hang around in groups of five, because they have a fifth of a personality each. As soon as I heard that line, it made everything a lot easier at school.”