Daniel Radcliffe: The $50 million film star

Daniel Radcliffe has signed a $50 million deal to star in the final two Harry Potter films.

He will be paid $25 million to shoot penultimate book Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, and the same amount for the movie of J.K. Rowling's Potter finale, The Deathly Hallows.

Of course, after taxes, commissions to lawyers, agents and managers, he won't see that much of the cash, but it at least allows him to explore and experiment with his acting.

The money's also a nod towards the fact that the studio can't do the next Harry Potters without him - plus an acknowledgement that the boy wizard tag could harm him in the future.

In any event, he's cleverly carving out a post-Potter career and, as he proved with Equus on the London stage this year, he's serious about his chosen profession.

Daniel didn't miss a single performance at the Gielgud Theatre, insisting he go on even when incapacitated with flu.

All his preparation to play the troubled teenager Alan Strang in Equus (over a year before he did it on stage) informs his work - his best to date - on the latest Potter movie, The Order Of The Phoenix.

As I watched the film, I sensed a certain stirring quality about it and I kept thinking of Shakespeare's Henry V, particularly when Harry talks in the film about having "something worth fighting for".

Scroll down for more

Daniel, 18, laughed and said that, funnily enough, he had watched Kenneth Branagh's Henry V film "so I could work out the leadership thing".

It's a strong, engaging performance (as are those of his cast mates) and very different, of course, from when he first played Harry in The Philosopher's Stone six years ago.

"I don't recognise that boy," Daniel said.

But the actor had a certain charm about him even then, which is why audiences care so much about what happens to Rowling's boy wizard.

It's also to his credit that he doesn't care much about the money, but he's aware that, as one of his friends observed to him, "it will give you manoeuvre".

Daniel added: "Obviously, I'm in a very fortunate position where I don't have to do things for the money. I can simply do them because there's an interesting character and a good director involved."

He continued, without acknowledging or discussing an amount: "The money is absolutely fantastic and I'm very grateful, but it's not the main thing that drives me. Being on Fortune [magazine] lists is all very nice, but I am my own person. What people write about me doesn't make me who I am."

After he launches Harry Potter And The Order of Phoenix in Tokyo, London Los Angeles and New York, he will join David Haig and Kim Cattrall in World War 1 drama My Boy Jack, for Ecosse Films.

He then begins preparing to film The Half-Blood Prince, again with director David Yates - somehow scheduling in Equus on Broadway as well as shooting The Deathly Hallows.

Daniel is being because the Harry Potter films may end up consuming all his time.

But he knows it would be the opportunity of a lifetime for a teenage actor to star on the New York stage.

"It would be very hard to turn it down, certainly," he said.

A wizard of a young man.