Daniel Radcliffe Felt ‘Insecure’ When Playing Harry Potter

Star of the Harry Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe, sat down with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Wednesday evening to talk about his newest project, a Broadway musical entitled The Lifespan of a Fact, reports People.

However, Fallon had some ulterior motives behind inviting Radcliffe on his show, including showing the actor some internet memes about himself that he had never seen before.

One of the memes featured a young Radcliffe holding a snitch — an element in the fantasy game of Quidditch, a sport played whilst riding magically imbued broomsticks — with the lyrics to Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” written over the image.

“If you got problems I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but a snitch ain’t one.”

The actor responded by talking about what it was like to star in the Harry Potter series, claiming he felt insecure.

“What’s cool about that stuff is I never as a kid, and you’re just insecure at that age, I never felt cool at any point playing that character. And people thought that was pretty cool, it’s nice.”

Fallon showed the actor another meme featuring the “Harry Pugger” pug dressed up as Harry Potter, the image drawing laughter from Radcliffe. After seeing a photo of himself sitting alone outside of a café with the words, “Thinkin’ bout all them school loans wondering if your wizardry degree gonna work out,” written over the image, Radcliffe gave Fallon the scoop about what was actually going on when the picture was taken, reports Entertainment Weekly.

“That’s me years ago out for lunch or something realizing there was a paparazzi to my right and thinking, ‘Ugh, what do I do?'”

Fallon also showed Radcliffe a a video of a fan dressed up as Emma Watson’s character Hermione Granger dancing, to which Radcliffe reacted, “That is great. We need to remake the films as musicals.”

Radcliffe has landed his first original Broadway role in his newest project, The Lifespan of a Fact. The musical show is set to premiere worldwide on September 20 at New York’s iconic Studio 54. He has previously starred in the Broadway revivals Equus and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

The play, based on the book of the same name, tells the story of John D’Agata’s essay concerning the Las Vegas suicide of adolescent Levi Presley — “What Happens There.” Radcliffe will play Jim Fingal, the man assigned to fact-check the essay.

The show’s official description reads, “And now, Jim Fingal has a huge problem. John made up some of his article. Well, a lot of his article. OK, actually, maybe the majority of it? What starts professional quickly becomes profane as one question rises to the surface: Can Jim Fingal ever just shut the fact up?”

The play was written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell, and is directed by Tony nominee Leigh Silverman.