Since the Harry Potter franchise ended, both Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have achieved a perhaps unexpected level of success and fame, taking on a range of roles and generally being affable and charming and endearing (and, in Watson’s case, becoming a feminist icon, as well). Having watched the Harry Potter trio grow up (what's up, Rupert!), it is, perhaps, more difficult to see them as adults who are mature, sexual beings, as compared to other actors their age. And, as Radcliffe sees it, there is also something of a gender dynamic at play, at least in terms of how he is viewed in comparison to Watson.

“Around the time of What If, the rom com, a lot of people were saying, ‘You’re a really unconventional romantic lead,’” Radcliffe said, during an interview with the Associated Press for his upcoming Horns. “Eventually I got bored of hearing that, so I kind of picked someone up on that, so I was like, ‘What about me is unconventional? Tell me.’ She said, ‘Well, I think it’s probably the fact that we associated you with playing Harry as a young boy for so long.’” Radcliffe continued, “My immediate response was: the male population has had no problem sexualizing Emma Watson immediately.”

Radcliffe also expressed frustration about the way in which all of his career moves are contextualized by Harry Potter (as, uh, we just did at the top of this blog post). “People seem to think that everything I’m doing is a comment on Harry Potter, which it’s not,” he told the AP. “It doesn’t always need to be equated to that, but because that’s the narrative of my life, that’s what people link it into all the time. . . . The thing I do find frustrating sometimes as well is that some people seem to think that by wanting to do other things, it somehow means that I’m not proud of Harry Potter, which is ludicrous.”

Aww, Dan. We just want to offer him a mug of tea and a box of biscuits (that seems like it’d be his jam, right?) and tell him everything’s going to be fine and that we’ve never heard of Harry Potter (“He’s the kid from One Direction with the big hair, right?”).