You Call It Handicapped. I Call Myself Handicapable.

For Daniel Radcliffe, the premiere of the eighth and final Harry Potter film was an existential affair. After coming of age as the star of a billion-dollar franchise, he now faced a terrifyingly wide-open future that, at times, he wasn’t sure acting would be part of. It was in many ways the story of his close friend David Holmes that inspired him to take advantage of his career — one he now knew, at any moment, could be taken away.

Holmes was a stunt double on the Potter films, and a close mentor-turned-friend to Radcliffe as they grew up on set eight years apart in age. But in 2009, while in rehearsals for the final films, Holmes suffered a spinal injury during a stunt gone wrong. The injury left him paralyzed, and a subsequent cyst meant the mobility he recovered in his arms did not plateau but has instead slowly declined. Now 42 years old, Holmes has lost the use of his right arm, and may one day lose the ability to talk, swallow, and breathe independently.

But this isn’t the story Holmes wants to tell, nor does it adequately capture the spirit of Holmes himself. While that day in 2009 took his ability to stunt, his positivity and humor has remained, along with his friendship with Radcliffe. The pair have continued to work together, including on Holmes’s podcast, Cunning Stunts. It was Radcliffe who told him that his larger story deserved a documentary, and they eventually partnered with fellow Potter crew member Dan Hartley (who worked on those films as a video assist operator) to bring David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived to HBO.

When we first meet Holmes, it’s 2019 and he’s awaiting a series of surgeries he might not make it through. His experience facing, and ultimately surviving, these surgeries are interspersed with behind-the-scenes Potter footage and interviews with Holmes, his family, Radcliffe, his fellow Potter stunt doubles, and the stunt crew that chart the events leading up to the initial accident. We see how his life and relationships have changed, and the documentary is privy to the frank conversations he must have with friends and family about the realities of his disability.

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (now streaming on Max) is raw and heartbreaking, but also sharply funny and overall uplifting. That last aspect is what Holmes, Radcliffe, and Hartley really want to stress when we sit down for a conversation: David Holmes’s life is not a tragedy. While Holmes hasn’t been able to bring himself to watch the documentary yet, it’s because he’s saving it for a time when he really needs it, when he could use the reminder that his life was full and special and well-lived — whenever that may be.

One of the lines in the documentary begins with you, David, talking about how you’ve never publicly told this story. And so I’m curious, why now?
David Holmes: I had to be convinced by these guys to get over the edge. Harry Potter means a lot to a lot of people. It’s a very safe space. It’s a really wonderful thing. And obviously breaking your neck is not the most positive story to be associated with it. I’ve always been very protective of that and the series. I think now, as the fan base is growing and they’re rediscovering the films with their kids, I think it’s the right time to sort of share my story, my perspective, and hopefully share the fact that even despite the paralysis that I live with, there’s a human being here. And telling a story of a disabled person, quite often in legacy media those stories are very much “victim.” I consider myself a survivor, not a victim. I’m very fortunate I’m able to still be myself over this. I would say that and joining the British Stunt Register are my two greatest successes in life.

So these guys convinced me after we originally wanted to make a podcast series on camera that highlighted the stunt community. These guys said, “Really, the thread of the story should be more your story.” So a bit of to-and-fro-ing and a little bit of convincing, but I was willing to let people I love tell my legacy on film and to move forward with the legacy that is not just me hitting that wall 14 years ago on camera, but which is actually me surviving something really difficult and still having a positive perspective on life.

Daniel Radcliffe: And still being you, as you say. Dave was obviously, if you’ve seen the film, such an incredibly talented gymnast and performer and somebody whose identity is so wrapped up in their physicality. To have that thing taken away from them and have to completely start from scratch like, “Who am I? What makes me happy?” is one of the most profound things that I’ve ever been a witness to. And Dave’s natural humility. I think any good rational person doesn’t think their own life is so interesting that they should have a film about it. Dave was very like, “I don’t want it to be about me.” And then he obviously got us and many other people in his life being like, “No, no, no. You are a really special case.” And it’s not just to do with what happened, with what his story was. It wouldn’t be the same documentary if Dave wasn’t the person he is through all of that. His humor and his kindness and generosity. Honestly, I do think the thing that will hopefully surprise people about the film is how funny it is. And that is entirely because of Dave.

David: Humor over the horror.

So it took some convincing. Overall, how long was this in the making?
Daniel: I started off ages ago doing these interviews where for some reason I had it in my head that I might know how to direct a documentary without ever having done anything remotely like that before. And so we got a good 18 months or so or more of interviews and then I started just getting a sense of like, “I don’t know how to do this. And we’re slightly treading water now and I’ve got other work stuff going on and I probably don’t have the skills to make this as a director, and I definitely don’t have the time to learn how to do that.” So I was like, “We need to get a director.” We wanted somebody that would have the same connection to the material and to Dave as we did, and so we immediately thought of Dan because we all knew him from Potter. Dan has directed a feature film before and hadn’t worked in documentary but had infinitely more grounding and a skillset in editing and all those things. Dan was video playback on Potter, which is a department that not all films have. He would edit assemblies of stuff live for us on set. So I showed him what we had done so far, and he was very kind about it, but that was the turning point of like, we either figure out how to use what we’ve got or we start again with our actual director, which is what we did. That was the moment where the film went from being kind of a thing that me and Dave were making about stunts, but also about Dave, to just honing in on Dave as the story.

David: And through that time, I obviously was going through different changes in my neurological function and different surgeries. And there was a chance that things would’ve got worse and I’d not come out the other side. So we captured that first interview before my surgeries in 2019, a week before. I’d just got back from what I thought would’ve been the last holiday of my life. I just wanted to be able to trust someone to be able to get out what I had to say and to reflect on my career just in case, God forbid it. And well, I’m still a survivor. Still here now. And over the last four years, even though my neurological function is still deteriorating and what have you, I still have the same mindset of just, life’s a gift. I’m gifted with a lovely community of friends, family, and a lot of loved ones that help me survive this. It takes a village to live with a spinal-cord injury, whether that’s, you know, my dedicated team of PAs that get me up every morning, to my mum and dad or my friends within the disabled community that I can moan about this and that with. So I will always say that I’m the sum of all the parts of all the people that love me.

You mentioned it’s a topic that you have to approach carefully because Harry Potter is so precious to people. I’m one of those people, hence my insane energy right now —
David: We’re both honored to be part of that. Just reflecting on what Potter means to you, it’s your safe space, right? Films and TV and storytelling, it’s the same for me. After those surgeries, I was faced looking at a ceiling for hours and hours on end. What did I do to get through that?

Daniel: Not hours, like days.

David: I got a projector, and I put on The Lord of the Rings extended edition — my safe space. Those 14 hours got me through the worst of it at the start, the trauma, the horrendous stuff. And I still use film and TV to this day as my therapy.

Daniel: It’s honestly the most worthwhile thing people ever say to me about the films. Calling films escapism sounds like it cheapens it in some way, but actually, that’s one of the most valuable things you can give someone. If somebody is in a really tough situation and you can genuinely distract in a positive way from that for a few hours or a few days, what more could you want from a piece of art that you’ve made?

Dan Hartley: And I think for this film, we really hope that people learning about Dave and seeing how he’s developed an attitude, a philosophy, how he’s grown, that’s gonna be really impactful for people. That was very much why Dan and I tried to channel it onto him in particular, as fantastic as the other stunt performers are. I’ve listened to all those Cunning Stunt podcasts. Incredible community. But Dave’s got an incredible power for positivity and for accountability, for owning his space, for owning what happened to him, and not seeing himself as a victim.

David: And that comes from the love and support and the village around me. You know, you look at my friend Tommy, who works for me as one of my PAs, I’ve been in his arms as much as his own child. He’s been in my life for 13 and a half years. He’s got me up. He’s washed me, he’s dressed me, he’s helped me travel the world. He’s helped me gain experience and live my life, and with this deteriorating, he’s been a constant there for me. There’s no truer evidence of accountability and friendship than that if you ask me.

One of the things I want to make sure this interview honors is what you’ve mentioned here and also in the film, which is not just reliving horrible events over and over and not treating the story as a tragedy. And so I wanted to know, what are some of those things that have brought positivity to your life? 
David: Blindboy. Blindboy Podcast is the greatest podcast out there. Its host David Chambers is a working creative that brings joy to my life every week, makes an impact, and I absolutely adore the man. I’m one of his patrons because he really helps me have a safe space every week where I’m taken on a narrative journey through his podcast series.

Daniel: What else, what music?

David: Music. I consume all aspects of what it is to be human. It forces me to be present. ‘Cause I’m constantly having to let go of a limb all the time, to try and not tune into that pain and it takes a large amount of mental capacity, but it also reminds me to take the good bits in. The last 14 years, I’ve spent one of those in bed, so when I’m up and I’m seeing the light, like I drove through Central Park yesterday and I looked at the trees and I was like, “Tom, just look at it. Isn’t it beautiful?” And Tommy’s in the backseat with me, and Tommy’s just gone through some loss in his family recently, so he is still processing that. And just me prompting him to take the beauty of it all in opened a conversation that me and him hadn’t had and needed to have about the loss that he’s going through, the loss that I’m going through. Life’s not easy. You are given a gift, and it will take the things that you love away from you. I learned that at the age of 25. I’m still learning it every day with the loss of another limb. But it makes me appreciate it all. You know, autumn in New York, there’s a reason why people write songs about it, right?

Dan: Something that Dave hasn’t mentioned today that I think is really important is he does a lot of advocacy for disability. He’s been supporting the hospital that treats him tirelessly for many, many years. And I’ve been there when he’s gone in, when there’s a freshly injured person. He’ll spend time with them. He’s bought wheelchairs and supported people.

David: You gotta give back. I live a very privileged life as a disabled person. Being disabled, you’re normally way below the poverty line. And most of the people that I encounter in the spinal-injuries community are reliant on government support and friends and family to help them get ‘em outta bed every day. I have the luxury of being able to have my own care team, being able to travel the way I do, being able to just buy a wheelchair. The cushion that I’m sitting on is $700. It’s a bit of foam and a bit of gel. But because it’s required for me to have it, because people know that we need it, that’s why they charge so much. So I am really lucky, and I check my privilege along that journey. If I can help anyone that I can, I try to.

The documentary is in part about your and Daniel’s friendship. You worked together on the Potter films, you’ve worked on the podcast together, and now you’ve done this project. How has your friendship changed?
Daniel: When we first met, I was a kid and you were a teenager, so it was very much like, you were an older kid being very sweet to hang out with a little boy. I would go to the stunt cabins three times a week, probably for half an hour, and David had me jumping off cabin roofs and doing a bunch of stuff that the execs would not have been happy with if they had known quite how exciting my lunchtimes were. But then as I got older, Dave was always a few years ahead of me on the road, so he became kind of a real guide and sort of a mentor. We partied together, went on a holiday together, and did sort of all that stuff together. We really have just grown up together at this point. And it’s changed in all the ways that a friendship should over time as you both grow older, but also we are very similar as when we first met in a lot of ways.

David: The whole world watched Dan grow up in front of the camera. I watched him grow into the man that he is now behind the camera. I feel very fortunate to be part of that journey and to have contributed to your physicality and now to vicariously see that on camera with the action stuff that you do or the way you take care of yourself, the accountability you hold within yourself as a man, as a human, you make me very proud. And I love you very much.

Daniel: Well, thank you. I love you.

I read at least at one point, David, you hadn’t watched the film back. Is that still the case?
David: Not ready yet. I mean, not many people have the luxury of a giant HBO project to be able to look back and see themselves at a point in their life where they’ve still got optimism and positivity. There is a chance that on my journey I might lose independent breathing, speech, and the [ability to] swallow. There is a definite day that I’m gonna get in bed and not get out of it. I would like that safety net of being able to look back at this time stamp, this moment in time right now to who I am as a man and my relationships in my life and what I see as important. When I’m ready, I’ll watch it.

Dan: But Dave was very clear that he wanted everything shown. He didn’t want to hold anything back, he wanted to show —

David: If we’re doing it, we do all of it. I understand the responsibility of representing disability. So just ‘cause I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean to say I’ve not had an Avengers team of disabled people and friends in my community that have given me their opinions and said, “You come across as empowering, you come across beyond your disability, beyond what your physical appearances. You are a human being and human doing.” There is a saying in America: You call it handicapped. I call myself handicapable.

Daniel: We were very conscious that since Dave probably didn’t want to watch it, we’d show it to as many people from Dave’s disabled community of friends, and other friends in his life to make sure, like, is there anything in here that we can see that we know Dave wouldn’t be happy with? Or that he’d be annoyed that he’d said? And I think we’ve done right.

David: I mean, it is obviously hard. Hard for my mum and dad to watch, hard for my brothers to watch, hard for all my friends and my loved ones to watch. But they all come out of that screening and they’ve all just said to me, “It’s you. It felt like an hour and a half therapy session.” And you gotta thank these guys for that. My producers, director, our editor Kevin [Konak], they’ve all captured all of us, all of our relationships and all of me.

David: To capture the first film. You know, there might be a sequel.

Right. All the cutting room floor footage.
David: There was a lot of jokes in there —

Daniel: We could definitely do The Boy Who Lived: After Dark, with all the stuff we could not put in the film.

I had also read that you had spoken to J.K. Rowling about having a character who was in a wheelchair in the upcoming TV series. What would that character be, if you could design your dream character?
David: Wizard in a wheelchair? Teacher. Yes, okay, magic would probably be able to fix it, but the thread of Harry Potter and in life, there’s no free meal, right? It may be that that teacher would accept learning to live with their disability instead of having the side effects of whatever they needed to do to fix it, [like] drink unicorn’s blood. Like all medication in life, there’s a side effect to it. So it would be nice to have a wizard in a wheelchair, either in the game or in the new TV series. And also I’m putting my PA Tommy up for the platform controller at Platform 9 3/4. That would be so good, wouldn’t it?

Daniel: Harry Taylor, Chris Columbus’s driver, played him in the first film, but Tommy would also do really well in that part. He’d be so grumpy.

David: So, yeah. It would be really nice to have that representation. I’ll keep campaigning, keep pushing, and let’s see where we go.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57wKuropucmnylrc2inKVlopaxpLjIn52eZZGjsW6wwK%2BgnWWYpLmusdJmpqdlnJ6zpnnAn6ueql2drrO%2B2GanqKykmr9vtNOmow%3D%3D