BANG Showbiz English
Weird Al advised Daniel Radcliffe how to play the accordion for the Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
The 33-year-old actor stars as the parody musician in the new biopic and was critiqued most by Al on his technique with the musical instrument, even though there was a lot of โfreedomโ in the fact that he is not doing a solid impersonation.
He said: โI think definitely a lot of license and freedom was given by the fact that itโs not just a straight Al biopic and impersonation. That, I think, gave me a lot of freedom to be like, okay, this is a version of this person. And Iโm also really lucky that Alโs nice! And that he wasnโt sitting on set like a hawk being like, โAh, you did that wrong.โ Heโs very, very generous. Most of the notes that I got from him were musical, and particularly about the accordion. He was like, โCan you be a bit more expansive in how youโre pumping it? Because youโre a bit cautious with that,โ and heโs very expressive with it. .โ
The โHarry Potterโ star went on to explain that the โWhite and Nerdyโ hitmaker โ whose real name is Alfred Matthew Yankovic
โ was โconcernedโ that he would make him come across โshyโ on screen but found a sense of โapprovalโ when he saw he had made the comedy songwriter laugh.
but He told Collider: โSo, I think he was a bit concerned that I was gonna make him look like a shy accordionist. So yeah, there was that, but generally speaking, it was intimidating but also when you would see him laugh at something, youโd be like, โOkay, great! I can go home.โ Itโs a very good seal of approval.โ