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'We're not in school ... so we automatically feel more adult,' he tells MTV News of the three leads.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Daniel Radcliffe
Photo: MTV News

Remember those long-ago days in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" when the young boy wizard first entered the hallowed halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? The time Harry and Ron became best buds on the train out of King's Cross? How Harry and Hermione first clashed as Gryffindor housemates before eventually bonding?

What a difference a decade makes. The first part of "Deathly Hallows," based on J.K. Rowling's seventh book in the series, finds the three friends far from the safety and supervision of Hogwarts, fitfully bidding goodbye to their adolescent lives and embracing adulthood. Portraying that tricky transition, Daniel Radcliffe told MTV News, is exactly what makes this film "very special," setting it apart from previous installments.

"We're not in school, we're not in school uniforms, so it's harder to see us as schoolkids, so we automatically feel more adult," he said. "It was kind of great to have that responsibility."

Yet the 21-year-old is quick to add that he and his castmates didn't feel overwhelmed by the pressure of having the success or failure of the movie rest entirely on their young shoulders. "One day we'd be doing maybe a scene with just me and Emma or just myself and Rupert," Radcliffe explained. "But later, we'd be doing the wedding scene with everybody. That's one pressure we didn't feel, was that we were carrying the movie, which we kind of are when you see it. For a lot of it, it is just us three."

The Brit actor also credits director David Yates with shooting their scenes and piecing them together in such a way that the kids' journey — in which they travel through the wilderness in a quest to destroy a magically evil Horcrux — never feels repetitive.

"That's what's great about David as a storyteller," Radcliffe said. "Those long periods of the film where we just keep operating and waking up in a forest — while those could have felt quite same-y, the journey of the film means each time that happens, it takes on a different tone."

Check out everything we've got on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1."

For young Hollywood news, fashion and "Twilight" updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com.

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