Daniel 'Harry Potter' Radcliffe to go bare in London play

The magician will turn into a stable boy. Daniel Radcliffe, who immortalized boy wizard Harry Potter on the big screen, will make his stage debut with Peter Shaffer's Equus in London's West End Theater in March next year. Seventeen-year-old Potter will play a mentally disturbed boy, Alan Strang, who pokes horses in the eye with a metal wire and strides them naked for sexual thrills.

“It is an extraordinary play, and he's very much looking forward to the role. He is maturing as an actor and beginning to take on new and challenging roles,” said Vanessa Davies, Radcliffe's publicist, on Friday. The director of Equus is Thea Sharrock.

Besides shedding his film persona, Radcliffe will shed his clothes for a scene where he is shown riding a horse in the buff and deriving sexual pleasure from the process. “This is an extraordinary play and, yes, there is a scene of nudity in it, but that's not what the play is about,” Davies said. Another star of the drama is Richard Griffiths, who will play a psychiatrist treating Alan. In the Harry Potter series, Griffith plays the boy wizard's uncle.

Equus made its onstage debut in 1973 at London's National Theater. It later went on to become a successful Anthony Hopkins-starrer Broadway play, before being turned into a film starring Richard Burton and Peter Firth in 1977.

As of now, Radcliffe is busy shooting for the fifth film in the series that catapulted him into the big league. “He finishes shooting Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in October or November and rehearsals (for Equus) are starting in January,” Davies said. Recently, Radcliffe wrapped up the shooting of December Boys, a film about four orphan children up for adoption.

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