Daniel Radcliffe is about to experience the magic of fatherhood. The Harry Potter alum and longtime girlfriend Erin Darke are expecting their first child, his rep confirmed to multiple outlets on March 25. Not long after the pregnancy broke, insiders revealed exactly how much the actor is already looking forward to welcoming their baby. “Daniel is so excited to be a dad. His relationship with Erin is really special and everyone thinks they will be amazing parents,” a source told The Sun. “They have kept it pretty quiet up until now but she can’t hide her bump anymore.”
Radcliffe and Darke met while filming 2013’s Kill Your Darlings. Calling his girlfriend “the love of my life” on People TV’s Couch Surfing series in April 2019, he joked about having to tell their potential future children about their library sex scene. “It’ll be a hell of a story to tell our kids one day because of what our characters do with each other,” Radcliffe said, also expressing gratitude that the beginning of their “beautiful relationship” is preserved on film. “Our characters are meeting and flirting with each other, so there is this kind of sweet record of us just meeting for the first time and flirting.”
Years earlier, Radcliffe also admitted that he fell for Darke while filming the intimate scene. “There’s no acting going on — not from my end, anyway,” the actor shared with Playboy in October 2015. “There’s a moment when she makes me laugh, and I’m laughing as me and not as my character. She was incredibly funny and smart. I knew I was in trouble.”
Darke, for her part, has also reflected on the 2012 film shoot. “One of the first things we bonded over was how much we really love what we do and there’s something that’s really beautiful and really lovely about being with someone who just innately understands that about you,” the actor, who has also appeared in several episodes of Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, shared in a 2018 People interview.
Despite engagement rumors, the couple has had to ensure loved ones that they’re not married. “We’re at the point now where I’ve seen my own wedding reported several times,” Darke told Vulture in March 2020. “You do start to dismiss things you read about your partner if you’re pretty sure they’re not true. I spent a week once having to text all my family members being like, “I promise if I’m getting married, you will find out from me and not Us Weekly. … It’s always very detailed, and with things that would never be true if you’ve ever met us.”
In the same joint interview, Radcliffe added that his Harry Potter co-stars often get lumped into the wedding speculation, too, explaining, “At least three different times, somebody has written that we’re getting married, and Emma Watson is gonna be the maid of honor, and Rupert Grint is my best man, and we’re getting married on a lake in Michigan.”
Rumors that Darke is pregnant, on the other hand, have turned out to be very true.
