Daniel Radcliffe said immediately after filming the final Harry Potter he “wanted to do other things” but he has since grown “more and more aware” of what a “special and cool thing it was”.

The British actor made his name playing the eponymous boy wizard from 2001 to 2011 but has since branched out into other roles, including upcoming biopic about US musical comedian Weird Al Yankovic.

Appearing on BBC Radio 1 podcast 6 Degrees, co-host Spencer Matthews revealed he had “several call-backs” to play Harry Potter’s on-screen nemesis Draco Malfoy in the JK Rowling franchise.

Radcliffe, 33, said: “It was 10 years of my life, it was a job I loved doing and we had a great time, so I’m genuinely very happy to talk about it and actually probably more now than immediately after Potter.

“Immediately after Potter, I was like, ‘no I’m doing other things’ but now I’ve grown more and more aware of what a special and cool thing it was.”

Radcliffe’s next film, which is set for release on November 4, will follow the life and career of musical parody sensation Yankovic who rose to fame with comical spoof versions of classic songs.

Over the course of his career, Yankovic, 63, has won five Grammy awards for his comedy recordings.

Speaking about playing a real-life character, Radcliffe said: “This was a nice hybrid situation this film, because it is a real person and this person was on set and was supportive, but also, it’s such a crazy depiction of that real person that I’m not walking off set like oh did I do that bit in your life right, was that okay. I didn’t feel that.

“Whereas I have been on set before where they’re on set and you feel a little bit ridiculous. In ‘Escape from Pretoria’ the real Tim Jenkins was there on set, we’re in a real prison and recreating moments from his life.

“It goes back and forth sometimes, it is amazing and what a special thing to be able to do this with this man here and sometimes you go like how ridiculous is this, we’re basically playing and in costume and this was this man’s life.”

Radcliffe also described how he got into character and his style of acting.

He added: “I’m pretty much the furthest away from method acting you get. I’ll stay in the accent, but I don’t need people to call me Weird Al all day or anything like that.

“When there is stuff to get into as a character, skills to learn, certain physicality then I love getting into that.

“I think it’s just I don’t really have a process that goes beyond reading the script and trying to understand the character as best as I can. Make-up, hair and costume do amazing work and sort of do the transformation for you.”