'Playmobil: The Movie' star Daniel Radcliffe on why he turns down 'big action movie' roles (exclusive)

Daniel Radcliffe has built a career playing slightly awkward characters, but in his next movie he’s at his most suave.

The Harry Potter star voices the role of super spy Rex Dasher in Playmobil: The Movie, the latest animated feature inspired by toys.

The film follows a pair of siblings - Anya Taylor-Joy’s Marla and Gabriel Bateman’s Charlie - who find themselves transported into the magical world of Playmobil and need Rex’s help to reunite and get back home.

It’s Radcliffe’s first mainstream role in a few years, after appearing in a string of indie movies like Imperium, Jungle and Swiss Army Man, but he tells Yahoo Movies UK that he’s not looking to play a live-action spy like 007 anytime soon.

“If the story around it fits, if there is a reason that a person like me would be cast as a spy, then yeah,” the actor says.

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“But whenever I get big action movies, where somebody goes from not being able to do anything to suddenly turning into Jason Bourne in the third act I always am like, 'I don't think you should cast me as this.’

“I don't think I'm someone who looks like they could have a fight generally,” he continues. “In the right circumstances, I would love to do a spy movie but it might be more like Spy with Melissa McCartney.”

The closest he came to playing a secret agent was in 2016’s Imperium where he starred as an undercover FBI agent. But what attracted him to Dasher was his ridiculous amount of confidence.

“There is something incredibly fun about playing an unbelievably confident, kind of to the point of being an oblivious, person who is constantly undercut by other characters who make him realise that maybe he's not as smooth as he thinks he,” Radcliffe says.

“Because I don’t do a lot of that!”

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While he enjoyed playing an overconfident animated spy, Radcliffe is not in a hurry to play a live-action one like James Bond.

For now, he’s just happy he’s made a movie that he can share with the children in his life.

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“I've done lots of weird films that my friend's kids or my god kids cannot see so it's nice to do something that they will be able to go and watch,” the actor says.

“There will also be toys and because it's a toy that doesn't look like me, there's a layer of separation where I can enjoy giving it to them more.”

Playmobil: The Movie is in cinemas this Friday, 9 August. Watch a clip featuring Daniel Radcliffe as Rex Dasher below.