Daniel Radcliffe Plays Against Type As ‘Now You See Me 2’ Antagonist

Daniel Radcliffe’s biggest role was the powerful wizard Harry Potter, but in one of his upcoming roles, he’s anything but skilled in magic. Radcliffe is one of the newest actors to join the Now You See Me sequel.

The movie trailer for Now You See Me 2 has been screened in movie theaters, and the audience gets a glimpse of Radcliffe not being so great at dealing magic skills. In the trailer, Radcliffe’s character tries to play with a deck of cards but fumbles instead. The sequel is one of the many films to be released this summer, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

[Image via Movieclips Trailers/YouTube]

Daniel Radcliffe joins the cast that already consist of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Lizzie Caplan, Dave Franco, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Jay Chou. Radcliffe plays Walter Mabry, a tech master that wants the Four Horsemen to pull a tricky heist at his bidding.

Now You See Me 2 is the second installment to the 2013 American heist movie. The first film received mixed reviews by critics but became a box office hit, which sparked a sequel.

The movies center around The Four Horsemen, Las Vegas magicians who in the first film, pulled off a bank heist in Paris, and must pull off another job in the sequel. Eisenberg, Harrelson, Franco, and Isla Fisher played The Four Horsemen in the first installment.

Fisher was unable to reprise her role in the sequel due to her last pregnancy, so Lizzie Caplan is the newest Horseman, Lula, in Now You See Me 2. Daniel Radcliffe and Jay Chou are the other new cast members to join the rest of the returning cast.

While Radcliffe’s character doesn’t have the magic skills like The Four Horsemen, Radcliffe the actor came very prepared when the current cast did a table read prior to filming. According to Entertainment Weekly, Radcliffe showed up to the reading with his lines already memorized, which impressed fellow actor Chou.

“That’s how precise and how far ahead he [Radcliffe] works on all of this stuff. He owned it.”

Now You See Me 2 director Jon M. Chu talks more about Daniel Radcliffe’s character, Walter Mabry, and how Mabry turned to science since he is not so good at dealing magic tricks.

He’s been burnt by it, so he’s turned to science. Science is the real magic to him. He basically takes these Horsemen on a ride. He now owns the Horsemen in a way that they have to escape his magic trick.”

The upcoming summer flick starts off after a year that The Four Horsemen pulled off the major Paris heist, and outwitting the FBI. This time around, The Four Horsemen pull off another magical heist that needs to clear their name, and expose the true unethical villain in the story.

The sequel underwent multiple movie title changes prior to the trailer’s release. The film originally had the working title Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, but in November 2014, ScreenRant ran an article that said that the movie title changed to Now You See Me 2: The Second Act.

As of April 2016, the movie’s title has been shortened to just Now You See Me 2, and has a June 10 release date. The sequel isn’t released yet, but Lionsgate officials already have a third film in the franchise in the works since the first film grossed $350 million in 2013.

While Daniel Radcliffe fans have to wait until June to see him in Now You See Me 2, they can experience Harry Potter nostalgia from his Google Plus account, which features a throwback photo of him and fellow Harry Potter alum Matthew Lewis at a WWE wrestling event.

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]