Child stars `will outgrow Harry Potter roles'

Schoolboy actor Daniel Radcliffe’s days as Harry Potter could be numbered, one of the movie’s producers warned today.

With his 15th birthday approaching, the child star is fast outgrowing the boy wizard he plays in the latest Potter movie, the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Although he is already cast to appear in the fourth movie, The Goblet of Fire, it is questionable whether Radcliffe will be able to continue to play Potter for a fifth time in the Order of the Phoenix.

Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley and Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger, will also outgrow their characters, said David Heyman, who has produced all the Potter films so far.

“There will come a point when one, two, or all three of them will move on,” he said.

“I don’t know when that will be – with the fifth, sixth or seventh movies - but it’s inevitable,” he told the New York Post.

Harry Potter ages one year with each of the books by author JK Rowling.

But movie-makers have been unable to keep pace, with a two-year gap between the second film, The Chamber of Secrets, and The Prisoner of Azkaban.

For now, the child stars are taking school exams and waiting until filming starts in full force on the fourth Potter movie in July.

The Potter movies have brought huge riches to the three young stars, who graced the red carpet for the premiere of the Prisoner of Azkaban on Sunday.

Radcliffe is reported to be the second richest teenager in Britain following Prince Harry, after recently overtaking singer Charlotte Church.

Speaking at the premiere in New York Radcliffe said that up to now he and his character have “kind of grown up together”.

He said: “You have to change the character. If you give the same performance in each film it going to get old very fast.” Robbie Coltrane, who plays Rubeus Hagrid, in the latest Potter movie, which opens in Britain on May 31, told how the child stars were growing up and coping with fame.

“They’re definitely getting older, they’re not children any more. They’re not quite as moody as adolescents.

“They are fantastic, I don’t know how they manage. They’re on set longer than anyone else is,” he said.

Alan Rickman, who plays Professor Severus Snape, added: “They don’t take any of this too seriously but they enjoy it and know it’s going to a be very special time in their lives.”