IF YOU’VE SPOTTED Daniel Radcliffe looking anxious at an airport over the last year or two, there’s a good reason for that. “I travelled with an accordion so much for this film,” says the frontman of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, “and had this major fear of going through security and them suspecting it was a bomb.” In this nightmare scenario, airport agents would challenge him to play the instrument in front of the entire queue. “You know, to prove it’s not an explosive,” laughs Radcliffe. “Do you know how stressful that would be?! It’s a very difficult instrument to play!”
Welcome to the challenging task of playing one of the most unusual artists in pop-music history, in a biopic so batshit-crazy it threatens to make Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis look like Last Night Of The Proms. But who exactly is the accordion-wielding Weird Al? And what made Radcliffe so eager to play him? Allow the actor to explain…