Although he had wanted to be an actor for as long as he could remember, Daniel Radcliffe had to convince his parents to allow him to pursue his dream. The schoolboy had been encouraged to try out for a 1999 British TV version of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" but his mother and father opposed the idea. When the opportunity to audition for another of Dickens' young heroes, this time "David Copperfield" (BBC, 1999), they relented. Surviving five callbacks, Radcliffe landed the role and earned glowing notices for his work. He also displayed a poise and screen charisma and more than held his own opposite such veterans as Bob Hoskins and Maggie Smith. Still, that was a mere warm-up for his first major film role. Radcliffe landed the highly coveted part of Harry Potter, the bespectacled young wizard of the popular series of books by author J K Rowling. But before he was set to make history, he had a small part in the amusing spy drama, “The Tailor of Panama” (2001).
The young actor beat out numerous other performers (including the much rumored Gabriel Thomson, who ironically had played another Dickens hero, Pip in 1999's "Great Expectations", and Liam Aiken, who had co-starred in director Chris Columbus' "Stepmom" 1998). Radcliffe received the imprimatur of author Rowling and was expected to be a breakout when "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" opened in theaters in November 2001. Indeed, the film was received warmly by audiences and Radcliffe became one of the best known adolescent actors of the day. Following the success of the film and the attempt to shoot as many as closely as possible before the young actors outgrew their roles, Radcliffe found himself with little time to explore other roles, as he reprised the bespectacled young wizard in the sequels "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) and the slightly darker "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004). After reviving the role for “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005), the first installment directed by a British director (Mike Newell), Radcliffe managed to squeeze in another film, “The December Boys” (lensed in 2005), a drama set in the 1960’s about four orphans longing for a home and a family.