DANIEL'S GAY SCENES WILL SHOCK HARRY POTTER FANS

  Harry Potter fans are in for a shock when they see Daniel Radcliffe as the gay American poet Allen Ginsberg in the movie Kill Your Darlings, which had its premiere at Sundance this week.
 With an American accent and tousled dark hair, Radcliffe is receiving praise for his portrayal as a younger version of the beatnik icon.

Radcliffe (left) embraces Jack Keroac

  Based on a true story, “Kill Your Darlings” is set in 1944, when Ginsberg is attending Columbia University and meets the sophisticated and eccentric Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), who introduces him to the New York City bohemian lifestyle, along with future authors William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston).
   Radcliffe's Ginsberg takes drugs, masturbates on screen and has sex with an older man he picks up at a bar.
   The actor, who is a vocal supporter of gay rights, said he had been bemused after walking the red carpet at the Eccles Theatre in Utah at the weekend, as the majority of the questions put to him focused on the film's gay scenes.

  "I don't know why a gay sex scene should be any more shocking than a straight sex scene," he said. "Both of them are equally un-shocking."

 Radcliffe was particuarly surprised that some people seemed more alarmed by the gay sex scenes than his previous role in the play Equus, in which he played a character who was sexually attracted to horses.

  "What weirded me out the most was people were asking me all these questions about the gay sex scenes. I was like: 'You know I did Equus?'. Some people are asking me questions like this is a more shocking subject, which is so strange."

 Describing the experience of filming the intimate scenes, he said: "It was something new. But you know what, we shot that whole scene in maybe an hour-and-a-half so it was incredibly fast-paced. I didn't really have time to stop to think and worry about it."