With Dan Radcliffe just having finished his stint on How to Success in Business and his new film, the psychological thriller The Woman in Black due in February, PARADE Magazine sat down with him to discuss life and love. Below are some excerpts from the article with the 22-year-old.

Are you a romantic?  “Yes. I don’t know where my romanticism came from. My mom and dad would read to me a lot. Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, tales of chivalry and knights, things like that. Those are the stories I loved growing up. I still see something very romantic in the world that perhaps isn’t there. I suppose I want it to be the place of knights and that kind of stuff.”

Are you in love with your girlfriend Rosie Coker? (Radcliffe met Coker, a production assistant, on the set of the last Potter film.)  “Yes, absolutely. When Rosie’s here, every day seems better… I’m not an easy person to love. There are a lot of times when I’m a very good boyfriend, but there are times when I’m useless. I mean, I’m a mess around the house. I talk nonstop. I become obsessed with things. This year it’s fantasy football, which means Rosie has to listen to me talking 24 hours a day about this team. ‘Should I take this player out, do you think, darling?’ And she listens to it, and she loves me for my oddness, my awkwardness, all of those things that I hate about myself. She finds them cute. I guess that’s love.”

Last year you gave up alcohol. Why?  “My inner life was being drowned. I’ve worked with Richard Harris, Gary Oldman, all those actors who went crazy when they were young, and I always wanted that. The idea of that kind of life and chaos was always so appealing to me. Unfortunately, the way I do it, there was no romance to it! [laughs] There is nothing glorious or triumphant about it-it was pathetic, boring, and unhappy.”

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