When it comes to thinking about Super Bowl LIII, Daniel Radcliffe seems to want to make like Harry Potter and cast a spell over the New England Patriots.
The actor who once named Tom Brady as one of his heroes hasn't forgotten that September 2015 moment when a "Make America Great Again" hat was spotted in the quarterback's locker, setting off a campaign-long series of questions about Brady's political leanings. Now, two years into Donald Trump's administration, Radcliffe still says Brady is "awesome" but isn't thrilled with the president.
“The whole world is rooting against the Patriots,” Radcliffe said (via Variety) as the team prepares for its ninth trip to the championship game under Brady and Bill Belichick.
Not that Radcliffe is advocating that Brady at 41 just go away. "NO!" he said emphatically, "but he should stop winning things. So, yeah, (I'm taking the) Rams.
“Take that ‘MAGA’ hat out of your locker,” Radcliffe said. “I feel like that was the moment when, as a country, we were all like, ‘Oh, come on dude!’ We all want — you’re awesome — to be behind you. Don’t put that in there.”
Brady has deftly scrambled, dodged and deflected questions about Trump and politics — saying the president was an occasional golf partner and a friend — since the hat, reportedly given to him by Trump friend/Patriots owner Robert Kraft, was spotted. Brady skipped the team’s visit to the White House when it won the Super Bowl in 2017.
English actor Radcliffe is an avid NFL fan, and said last fall that he has two fantasy football teams, one of which plays in a league he runs, and is "obsessed" with the sport.
"I'm fully aware that these are not good puns. I have Jared Goff on one team so I went with Goff with their Heads," he told Jimmy Fallon last fall. "... The other one I've got both Jordan Howard and O.J. Howard and so I went with Howard's End Zone."
In 2016, he was approached by TMZ and asked about whether he'd take Brady in the first round of his draft and he scoffed. "You don't draft quarterbacks in the first round," he said. "Come on, you know that. Don't ask silly questions."
Instead, he chose Rams running back Todd Gurley.
As for Brady, Radcliffe told the Daily Mail in 2016 that the first time he met the quarterback, he was with his wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen. “I must have been the first person to totally ignore her,” Radcliffe said. “I just went, ‘You’re so cool, you’re awesome. Just continue doing what you’re doing,’ and just left. I barely gave him the chance to reply.”
