Daniel Radcliffe Gives A Candid Update On Being A Dad

Fatherhood looks good on Harry Potter. On Oct. 8, at the opening night of his new Broadway show, Merrily We Roll Along, Daniel Radcliffe gave an update on how parenting is going after welcoming his first child with girlfriend Erin Darke earlier this year.

While the couple are keeping details about the baby under wraps, including his name and birthday, Radcliffe couldn’t stop gushing about his son to E! on the red carpet. “The short answer is it’s awesome and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened,” he said.

“It’s frankly terrifying to have a human being in the world that I care this much about,” he said. “And that everything he does is going to affect how I feel about my life for the rest of my life. So, you know, that’s intimidating.”

Like many new parents, Radcliffe is still adjusting to his now-erratic sleep schedule. “There’s no relation to what we need for sleep,” he said. “The less I sleep, the more I sleep at night. But the less they sleep, the less they sleep! And the more they sleep, the better they sleep! It makes no sense, but it is apparently how they work.”

The nighttime struggles have clearly been worth it. “The fact that there is a creature in the world that can give you the worst night of your life,” he said, “and then you wake up in the morning and go over to them and they turn around and smile and you’re like, ‘I don’t care about any of the things you just did.’ That’s pretty cool.”

In April, Radcliffe’s rep confirmed that he had welcomed his first baby with Darke after they were spotted walking around New York with a baby stroller. In a July interview with Entertainment Tonight, he revealed that they had a son. “It’s crazy and intense, but he’s wonderful and Erin is amazing,” he said. “It’s a real privilege also to have this time with him. I’m able to kind of just be here with him a lot, which is lovely.”

Looking forward, the actor said that fatherhood will affect how much he works and which projects he chooses to take, in order to maximize time with his son.

“It hasn’t really yet affected things, but I really like spending time with him, and I think I’m gonna miss him when I go back to work later in the year,” he said. “So I will definitely be, I think, a bit more selective — not more selective, I’ve always been selective, but I’ll probably work a little bit less for the next few years.”