EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Radcliffe Talks Playing “Weird Al” Yankovic in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Daniel Radcliffe stars as ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic in the new Roku movie, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Set to be released on November 4, Radcliffe opens up about learning to play accordion by “Weird Al”, what drew him to the movie, and so much more. Check out what he had to say below.

What drew you to wanting to be a part of this movie?
“Well, there was so much about the script that was exciting when I read it. First and foremost, really the way I try to prioritize my career now is by going, ‘What do I think I’m going to have the most fun making?’ It was so very, very obvious that this would be an incredibly fun thing to shoot because every page is you’ve got a fight scene and then a pool party and then a dance number and a song. And just to get to do something different every day and be pulling on all these different things, it was incredibly exciting.”

Were you fan of “Weird Al” before you got the part?
“I was a fan of Al before I read the script. Then I got the script, and I got the email first that was like, “The ‘Weird Al’ movie biopic, and you would be playing ‘Weird Al.'” My first reaction was kind of, ‘Oh, that’s incredibly cool, but there’s got to be people that are physically closer than me or whatever.’ And then I read the script, and a few pages into the script, I was like, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. That’s not what we’re doing.’ As soon as that moment clicked, you were like, ‘Oh great, I know what this is.’ And as of that point, I was just like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’”

Can you talk about the first time you met ‘Weird Al’?
“The first conversation was with Al and Eric. It was on Zoom a while back. Then as you know, obviously we got closer as the movie happening. I would send videos of myself trying to learn the accordion to them just so they could see where I was and would catch up every so often. Then the first time we met was when I was going to the studios to have an accordion lesson with Al. I do think everything everybody says is true. He’s lovely and supportive and kind and is very funny. But without the energy of comedians that are like, ‘I must be the loudest and funniest person in the room at all times.’ Al is not that, wonderfully. I will also say to what you were saying about the amount of people texting you and jealousy and stuff. When this film was announced, it was announced just after the announcement for the Harry Potter reunion on HBO Max. When I say that I got more texts about this than that, it’s not close. It was a wide gap of interest between those two things in my life specifically. So that was a real… Yeah, that was cool.”

What was it like learning how to play the accordion by ‘Weird Al’?
“We had two or three before we started, just to let me watch how he played certain parts, and I definitely couldn’t. I was a very blank canvas as a student, it’s fair to say. But he was very, very kind and very patient. I will take that to my grave with me that I had accordion lessons with Al Yankovic. And yeah, so that was very, very cool.”

How do you adjust to playing a real-life person, but a heightened version of them?
“If you can establish a character that is recognizable at the beginning, even if events are changed, that is the spirit. Then when things go truly off the rails later, then you’ve kind of earned it, and the audience can go with you. The thing about Al in the movie that is closest to real Al is that Al’s sort of sweetness and sincerity and kindness particularly at the beginning. Then there’s a point in the movie when obviously those qualities fade away. He becomes a very different version that I could not draw on using the real Al as inspiration.”

How did you prepare to play Al?
“A huge amount of my preparation was honestly learning the fight choreography, learning the dance choreography, and doing the stuff with the band. That was a lot of the actual prep and rehearsal with those things so that we wouldn’t be losing time for them on the day when it came to it. But yeah, other than that I think there’s a certain amount that you sort of learn by osmosis and just by being around Al, and particularly in the second half you definitely have what the film is and the structure of it gives you total license to just kind of go like, ‘Okay, how far can we push this? And how crazy can things get?’”

There are a number of parody songs in the movie, if you could pick a song that would parody your life, what song would it be?
“There’s a song by Tom Lehrer called ‘We Will All Go Together When We Go’. I’ve always been pretty morbid, so we’ll just go with that one.”

Who is planning on seeing the new movie?

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity