Daniel Radcliffe honors paralyzed ‘Harry Potter’ stuntman in new movie

After working with stuntman David Holmes all the time Harry Potter In the films, star Daniel Radcliffe watched his doppelgänger suffer a horrific injury during the production of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which left Holmes permanently paralyzed.

Holmes’ story is now told in the new HBO documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, which Radcliffe produced. The title is a reference to Harry Potter, comparing Holmes’ survival through adversity to that of the beloved character whose physical feats he once performed.

“David always seemed like a cool older brother,” Radcliffe says in the trailer. “He would do the most dangerous physical things.”

The documentary includes clips of a young Holmes developing his athletic skills and eventually becoming a stuntman, as well as behind-the-scenes footage of his work on the Harry Potter movies. It also includes candid personal footage from the past decade as Holmes learned to live with his disability.

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived The goal is to reflect “universal themes of living with adversity, growing up, forging identities in an uncertain world, and the ties that bind us together and uplift us,” according to the film’s official synopsis.

“This terrible thing happened to Dave, but I don’t want to talk like his life is a tragedy,” Radcliffe says in the trailer. “The way his life has affected the lives of those around him means this is the furthest thing from what you could imagine.”

For his part, Holmes says that “before the accident it was all about being cool and being a stuntman. Now it’s about being present. I have so much love in my life.”

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived premieres on HBO on November 15 and is also streaming on Max. Watch the trailer above.

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