Daniel Radcliffe is trying so hard to shed his cute, cuddly Harry Potter persona that he’s even agreed to play a farting corpse on a beach in his new film. Swiss Army Man, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Ruby Sparks actor Paul Dano opened on the second day of this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday and is already being called the festival’s weirdest movie.
Read: Daniel Radcliffe struggled with alcohol after Harry Potter ended
Dano plays a man stranded on a deserted island, contemplating suicide when Manny’s (Radcliffe’s) lifeless body washes ashore. But there is a catch. Manny maybe dead but that isn’t stopping him from farting incessantly. Having struck a friendship with the corpse, Dano finds new hope and instead of killing himself, decides to use the farting dead body like a jet ski to escape the island. Did we say weird? And did we tell you that his corpse also has an erection throughout the film? There’s that too.
While the idea may seem funny to some, many are finding it hard to digest and are walking out of the theatres. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the characters in the movie have long discussions on loneliness, masturbation and whole lotta other weird things.
The audience maybe bolting through the door but that isn’t stopping the cast, specially Radcliffe, from having a good time. In a very unnecessary pun, Radcliffe said in a session, “The chance to play a dead guy in this context was too much fun to pass up”.
{{/usCountry}}The audience maybe bolting through the door but that isn’t stopping the cast, specially Radcliffe, from having a good time. In a very unnecessary pun, Radcliffe said in a session, “The chance to play a dead guy in this context was too much fun to pass up”.
{{/usCountry}}Radcliffe also says that playing dead is not easy. “How can I look dead and look slightly embarrassed at the same time or, you know, what does that look like?’ So there was a lot of that to be worked out but 90% of that came from being in the room with Paul (Dano) and the (directors),” he said.
“We had a good time,” recalled Dano. “When you see it, we get to do some fun stuff, we get to do some silly stuff and, yeah. I spent like five weeks carrying Dan around.”
“And that’s the thing,” added Radcliffe. “I feel like there will be a lot of shots in the movie where people are like, ‘Oh, that’s obviously a dummy because Paul Dano wouldn’t have schlepped him around like that but he did.”